Little Nicky (2000) Review

“Release the evil”

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

There can be good in everyone and if you don’t think so, look at Little Nicky. 


PLOT


The 2000 film follows the titular character who is the youngest son of Satan and the kindest compared to his older brothers, Adrian & Cassius, who take their bullying antics too far by disfiguring his face with a shovel that causes his speech impediment. With their dad Satan not yet ready to pass on his responsibilities to either one of them, Adrian & Cassius take matters into their own hands by heading to Earth intending to rule the land of the living by possessing political & religious leaders. With their actions to leave causing the gates of Hell to close, Satan starts deteriorating and punishes Stanley the gatekeeper by growing breasts on his head. The Prince of darkness then tasks Nicky to bring his other sons back home. He is given a silver flask to trap them in and is guided by a possessed dog named Beefy to learn his surroundings in New York City. As he gets set up to live in an apartment with a struggling actor named Todd, he falls for a design student named Valerie Veran. His good intentions for her backfire when Adrian makes him scare her off, refusing to go back home. Nicky however is able to trap Cassius in the midst of a Harlem Globetrotters game and as a result, he befriends metalheads John & Peter who swear loyalty to him and explains his situation to Tony. He later makes amends with Valerie when proving his quest is real. The following day, Adrian possesses the Chief of Police (Michael McKean) and falsely accused him for mass murder. Discovering this, Nicky schemes a plan to lure him out. He possesses John to take the $50 million bounty and tries to trick him to drink the flask, but he figures out the scheme fast enough to pull him out of his host. He threatens to kill Valerie on the subway train tracks. Nicky doesn’t let that happen when he pushes her out of the way and dies tending to take him with him. Instead, his sacrifice grants him to heaven and meets his biological mother who happens to be an angel named Holly. With Adrian taking advantage of Nicky’s sacrifice and Satan still too weak to rule, he starts ruling Hell as he wants. When Holly shows her son what’s happening, she instructs him to use his inner light to save the world. He does so when confronting his brother in a lengthy battle to the point where they both get trapped with Cassius in the flask. Nicky & Adrian do get out but with a limited amount of time, Nicky uses an orb as his last resort given to him by his mom. Dropping it, it releases the Blizzard of Ozz, Ozzy Osbourne, who bites his head off and spits him into the flask. Valerie gives an assisted death to Nicky which sends him back home to save his dad and undo his brother’s actions. As Satan punishes his other sons by shoving the flask up the rump of Adolf Hitler’s ashes, he encourages Nicky to stay on Earth to maintain middle ground on both sides of the afterlife. The film ends in an epilogue revealing what happened to the characters a year later: Nicky conceived his firstborn Zachariah with Valerie and his jaw got fixed when she accidentally hit him with a shovel while planting tomatoes. Todd got to stage a one man show where only Valerie’s neighbor Clint aka Nipples attended. Beefy reconnected with his rat girlfriend Heather and had mutant children with her, whereas Stanley conceived children of his own with Gary the Monster. Satan & Holly tried reconnecting until they couldn’t handle a long distance relationship; Satan ended up in an entanglement with both Cher and the Blair Witch while Holly fell for Chris Farley. As for John & Peter, they used half of the reward bounty to buy Led Zeppelin’s old tour plane but crashed due to not hiring a pilot, causing them to settle into Nicky’s old bedroom in Hell.


THOUGHTS


If you’ve entered the 21st century and expect a new batch of raunchy comedies, actor Adam Sandler is gonna have you covered after already being on a roll in the second half of the 90s. If you ask me, this has to be the raunchiest he could’ve done with cowriter Tim Herlihy until 2012’s That’s My Boy because only he can make Hell look a little bit fun while still somewhat grounded. And he’s pretty bold to make connections to his past films the way Kevin Smith does, having Chubbs (Carl Weathers) from Happy Gilmore appear in Heaven and Rob Schneider appear as the same townie from The Waterboy cheering Nicky on. Having said that, the raunchiness works for the most part because a straight face is gonna get harder to keep as you won’t believe everything that happens until you happens. I mean this is the only kind of movie where audiences don’t freak out over an exploding basketball or a herd of spiders with Nicky’s head. While you’re likely gonna crack with the product placement of Popeye’s Chicken or Ozzy Osbourne being the best Deus ex machina to ask for in terms of wrapping up conflict sooner, there ain’t no way you’ll keep it together seeing Quentin Tarantino be a blind priest who senses Nicky’s darkness or Clint Howard being an over-the-top outgoing transvestite as Nipples. Heck, I cracked a bit with John Witherspoon being a vendor trying to steal a flask for fast cash, failing to intimidate Nicky with his eyes. On the other hand, I also squealed in laughter seeing Jon Lovitz getting an ideal comeuppance as peeping tom in the opening and Henry Winkler get tortured for no reason. Putting all those laughs aside, it seems to me people get a good kick out of this each time because it somewhat teaches viewers to use what makes you different as a strength instead of a weakness. This is indeed the case for Little Nicky because Sandler portrays him as a discouraged individual who has to build his much needed confidence to set things right. Growing up in Hell, it would make sense that his inner good will make him look like an outcast compared to his brothers. Once he finds out he’s half angel, he’s able to put good use of the identity he’d been trying to figure out for so long. And when you think about it, he really had it evened out the right traits from his parents, as in the fair strictness Harvey Keitel depicts Satan and relentless optimism the way Reese Witherspoon presents as Holly. It’s even a bonus to have Rodney Dangerfield as grandpa Lucifer who seems way too fun to hang around. Because Adrian & Cassius are 100% demon, Rhys Ifans & Tommy Lister Jr. knew exactly how to dial it up in making them pure evil. Since they are naturals at what they were born to do, they can’t help themselves in having severe entitlement to succeed their dad. Little did they understand the gift of balance Nicky was all about. Because of their refusal to do so, their hijinks was bound to be temporary and their punishment infinite. Besides learning his parentage, Nicky would never have pulled off the odds had he not met a colorful group of acquaintances. Beefy is closest you can get to familiar faces since he’s connected to the afterlife, and Robert Smigel is too funny as the voice of Beefy because it feels so unreal despite knowing this ain’t the first time we’ve seen a talking dog onscreen. You know you can’t take it serious seeing a dog be a literal party animal, but the energy from Smigel worked for me. When he’s not doing that, Beefy is still cool for being on top of Nicky when it came to figuring out his powers. While it was a real kick to see Jonathan Loughran & Peter Dante be genuinely supportive allies as John & Peter, Allen Covert made it count as Todd who is relatable as well for wanting to make a breakthrough in life generally since his hopes & dreams didn’t work out the way he wanted. Ironically, meeting Nicky gave him a new sense of motivation since he got to help unconventionally for the most part. I mean you know it’s a big coincidence to give an assisted death and give it an excuse to express past anger. Although things still didn’t work out after the world was saved, it’s him not giving up that mattered. Like most stuff from Happy Madison Productions, you know the story is complete when Sandler has a love interest. Patricia Arquette was a welcome addition as Valerie because instead of being a polar opposite, she is an equal to Nicky. They’re equals because they choose to stay good no matter whatever kind of bad comes their way, they stay to their authentic selves and that’s why they hit it off so fast. Had Nicky never met her, he wouldn’t likely appreciate his inner good the way he would following his sacrifice. And with the world restored, they can have a dysfunctional happily ever after they’ll cherish since they know their baby boy Zachariah will be a handful having gained Nicky’s powers. This movie is fine compared to other comedies, but there were still a handful of things that didn’t make much sense upon rewatching. For instance, why does the peeper have a picnic basket on him for the peeping? If you’re telling me he was gonna be there all night, that’s taking perversion too far. I then wonder why Adrian & Cassidy haven’t tried leaving before. If they’re immortal, 10,000 years is way too long to wait. And it’s pretty ridiculous that Nicky never studied Earth technology like trains. Even if he he never hoped to be his dad’s successor, it wouldn’t hurt being knowledgeable. Heck, I don’t even know what’s more unbelievable with Todd not calling an exorcist on him after seeing him sleep or Beefy not asking Satan’s assistant Jimmy (Blake Clark) for more money. Next, I feel like if Peter & Jon really wanted to pledge loyalty sooner, they should’ve chased the street vendor. On top of that, the referee that Cassius was possessing (Dana Carvey) should’ve been ejected for poor calls. Lastly, the public really acted stupid I’m not only believing Nicky is Tony Montana from Scarface, but not even noticing Chief of Police was shoeless at the press conference. The suspicion should’ve been through the roof way before Nicky did anything about it. Ignore all this however, then you’re still in for a blast. To wrap up, Little Nicky is the ideal answer to call a comedy a hella good time for letting loose with its absurdity. If you dig raunchy comedies, check this out.