Jack and Jill

Directed by Dennis Dugan

(PG)

*

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Adam Sandler “seems to suffer from cinematic bipolar disorder,” said Scott Bowles in USA Today. He has shown “surprising depth” in films such as Punch-Drunk Love, but in those from his own production company, like Little Nicky, he’s dreadful. Jack and Jill falls into the latter category. Sandler stars in dual roles: as an ad executive who’s desperate to convince Al Pacino to do a commercial, and as the adman’s irritating twin sister, who’s visiting from out of town. Inexplicably, she becomes the object of Pacino’s affections. While the concept “might have been tolerable in a three-minute Saturday Night Live skit,” it’s “excruciating” at this length, said Rene Rodriguez in The Miami Herald. The comedy is aimed at younger crowds, so “instead of any edgy humor, you get fart jokes, pratfalls, and more fart jokes.” The surprise here is Pacino’s engaging turn as “an outlandish version of himself,” said Alison Willmore in Movieline.com. There’s actually “more focus and less hamminess” in the former Oscar winner’s performance than in any he’s given on screen in ages. “Pacino ends up devouring the movie, but in a way that’s welcome.”