Waterboy - The guy with the water damage

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Movie
German title Waterboy - The guy with the water damage
Original title The waterboy
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1998
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
Rod
Director Frank Coraci
script Tim Herlihy ,
Adam Sandler
production Jack Giarraputo ,
Robert Simonds
music Alan Pasqua
camera Steven Bernstein
cut Tom Lewis
occupation

Waterboy - The guy with the water damage (Original title: The Waterboy ) is a film comedy from 1998 by director Frank Coraci with Adam Sandler in the lead role.

action

Robert Boucher, called Bobby, lives alone with his mother in Jackson's Bayou, a wetland in Louisiana . He is 31 years old and since his mother prefers to have him with her and prevents contact - especially with women - he lacks social skills in dealing with other people, and he also suffers from stuttering . He knows from his mother that his father joined the Peace Corps in 1966 when his mother was pregnant with him and died of dehydration after getting lost in the Sahara .

For 18 years he has been the water carrier of the Louisiana Cougars, a successful college football team. However, he is constantly teased by his fellow players. Coach Red Beaulieu doesn't want to distract his players any further and fires him.

His mother is delighted with the fact that he lost his job as he can now spend more time with her at home. In order to pursue his passion, however, the next day Bobby drives his wheeled lawnmower to South Central Louisiana State University, where he seeks the neurotic coach Klein, coach of the football team Mud Dogs, to apply for a water carrier with him. Since he doesn't ask for payment, he gets the job and is from now on the water carrier of the worst team in the league.

Here, too, he is teased by fellow players, but Coach Klein advises him not to put up with that. Bobby, who immediately afterwards has to endure again insults from the quarterback , tackles him down. Coach Klein recognizes Bobby's talent and wants to promote it. At the beginning there are still problems to call up his abilities, but then Coach Klein knows how to use his pent-up anger over his years of humiliation as an attack fuel for tackling the opponent. In order to play for the college team, he also has to go to college, which he keeps a secret from his mother, as she is against college and against being accepted into the football team. When Vicki Vallencourt shows up, an acquaintance from childhood, his mother also wants to prevent a relationship between the two.

Driven by Bobby Boucher, the Mud Dogs win one game after the other and make it to the finals, where they meet the Cougars, Bobby's former team, of all people. His coach Red Beaulieu finds out that Bobby never went to high school, but only had home schooling from his mother. He is therefore not admitted to college and is therefore not allowed to play on the football team.

The NCAA Football Association allows Bobby to still play the final if he catches the college aptitude test . However, his mother catches him studying and an argument ensues. After successfully passing the exam, he learns that his mother is in the hospital. He stays with her in the hospital the whole time. However, she is not sick at all , just wanted to win her son back. When she realizes that football is Bobby's passion and that he has made many friends through it, she tells Bobby the truth and also tells him about his father, who did not die but left her.

In the meantime the final game has already started and the Cougars are ahead. Bobby, his mother and Vicki take an airboat to the stadium. When everything seems lost for the Mud Dogs at halftime and everyone realizes that Bobby is the heart of the team, he comes into their cabin and gives them new courage - including Coach Klein, whom Red Beaulieu had intimidated in earlier years, who will also be Had stolen his tactic book, snatching the post of coach of the Cougars from him. Eventually Bobby and Coach Klein lead the Mud Dogs to victory and Bobby later marries Vicki Vallencourt.

background

  • For the voice of Adam Sandler , the German voice of Dietmar Wunder , which is known for him, is not used in the German dubbing , but the voice of Matthias Knop , who also speaks in the special way of his fictional character Richie . This earned the film negative comments in numerous reviews.
  • Director Frank Coraci has a guest role in the film as Robert 'Roberto' Boucher senior - Bobby's father.
  • The film claims that the medulla oblongata controls anger, jealousy, and aggression; in fact, it controls breathing and some reflexes.
  • The wrestler called Captain Insano in the original is called Captain Karacho in the German version .
  • Suzanne Lloyd Hayes, granddaughter of Harold Lloyd , sued the film studio in 2000 because The Waterboy was a plagiarism of the 1925 Harold Lloyd film The Freshman (German film title: Der Sportstudent ). The lawsuit, however, was unsuccessful and was dismissed in 2002.
  • Filming began on January 19, 1998 and ended on March 21, 1998. The film was mainly shot in Florida .
  • Production costs were estimated at around $ 23 million. The film grossed around 186 million US dollars in cinemas worldwide, including around 161 million US dollars in the USA and around 2.9 million US dollars in Germany.
  • It was released on November 6, 1998 in the USA and on April 15, 1999 in Germany.

Reviews

  • Ernst Corinth wrote in the Dirk Jasper FilmLexikon : “Anyone who felt mentally overwhelmed by Ballermann 6 is sitting in the right cinema at Waterboy's. […] The rest is done by a synchronization that is so bad that it really doesn't get worse. [...] If you actually hold out until the end of this film and then have to read that this humorous fiasco in the USA was a great success with the public, you suddenly see the distant country with completely different eyes. "
  • Lexicon of International Films : "A comedy that is as mindless as it is pointless, the comedy of which is primarily based on the exaggeration of stereotypical ideas about the inhabitants of the American southern states."
  • Hermann Withalm said: “There is really nothing funny about this unfortunate mixture of Forrest Gump and various sports films. [..] The only ray of hope: Kathy Bates, who with her interesting Louisiana accent [ sic ] achieved one or two smiles (but only works in the original version. The German synchronization is absolutely inaudible!). "
  • Flemming Schock wrote: “Dialogic wit is a long way off and the acting is not really worth mentioning. Although Adam Sandler has nothing more to do than chronically annoying stuttering, making incomprehensible stupid faces, ramming opponents and level into the ground and wearing hideous suits, his overall presentation remains somewhere pathetically cute, so it has the 'Forrest Gump -Factor'. However, without the brilliant Kathy Bates as a gigantic 'mother-to-be' type, the overall result would have been drowned without a hitch. "

Awards

  • Adam Sandler was nominated for the negative award Golden Raspberry 1999 as the worst actor .
  • At the 1999 MTV Movie Awards , Adam Sandler won the Best Comedic Acting category and was nominated for the Best Male Acting category.
  • When the Kids' Choice Awards were presented in 1999, Adam Sandler received an award for Favorite Movie Actor and the film was nominated in the Favorite Picture category.
  • At the 1999 BMI Film & TV Awards , Alan Pasqua won an award for film music.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Ernst Corinth on djfl.de ( Memento from November 8, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  2. Waterboy - The guy with the water damage. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 1, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. movie review Hermann Withalm ( Memento of 4 January 2006 at the Internet Archive ) at 25frames.org
  4. Flemming Schock on filmspiegel.de