The Waterboy [1999]

Bobby Boucher (Adam Sandler) is just a mild-mannered country boy whose lifelong dream extends no further than serving water to the football team during breaks in play. The team don't always appreciate Bobby's value and treat him little better than a slave, but things change when coach Klein (Henry Winkler) gives him a chance to play. It emerges that the years of pent up frustration have turned Bobby into a turbo-charged dynamo in defense. He swiftly rises from waterboy to superstar. From . Adam Sandler vaulted into the US20-million-salary stratosphere with this, his second US100-million hit in 1998--a movie that further shows just how deeply embedded he is in the Jerry Lewis tradition of idiot comedy. He plays Bobby Boucher, a backwoods Cajun and a mentally challenged individual with a fixation on water: specifically, on serving the coolest, most refreshing H 2O available to the college football team he has served since he was an adolescent. But when he's fired from his position, he takes up a similar job with a lowlier college team coached by neurotic Henry Winkler. One day at practice, Bobby loses his temper and delivers a bone-shaking tackle to the starting quarterback before he can say, "blackened crawdads", he's the star of the team and leading it to a bowl game. But it's all against the wishes of his overprotective mother (Kathy Bates), who wants to keep her Bobby to herself--and that includes keeping him away from the floozy girlfriend (Fairuza Balk) who's sweet on him. There are two kinds of people in this world: People who find Sandler funny and people who view him as a neon-lit symbol of the decline of popular taste. You know who you are and, based on that, you can decide whether this is a movie for you. --Marshall Fine