The Cob­bler

How does one explain an atroc­i­ty? There’s a strange sad­ness in real­is­ing that The Cob­bler is the worst Adam San­dler movie that has been or will ever be made (and that’s not a claim we make light­ly). By all rights, that dubi­ous hon­our ought to be bestowed upon one of the cyn­i­cal pieces of shit spewed out by Hap­py Madi­son Pro­duc­tions and aimed at the low­est com­mon denom­i­na­tor like sewage from a hole cut in a pres­surised sep­tic tank.

And not one of the ones with Drew Bar­ry­more – you know, those movies where San­dler almost seems to try – but like, one of those movies with Shaq. Instead, the his­to­ry books of the future will show that the worst Adam San­dler movie of all time was a seem­ing­ly innocu­ous mod­ern fable from the guy who direct­ed The Sta­tion Agent. On the bright side, appar­ent­ly they’ll still be mak­ing his­to­ry books in the future. So at least there’s that.

Any­way, The Cob­bler. Ugh, do I real­ly have to do this? Not even The New York Times reviews every­thing, anymore…

Ugh, alright, fine. It’s called The Cob­bler. It’s about a cob­bler. It makes Pix­els feel like a palate cleanser. I real­ly can’t be both­ered to write a plot syn­op­sis for this night­mare, so instead I just wrote down almost every­thing that hap­pens in the first 30 minutes.

In present day Man­hat­tan, Max Simkin (San­dler) tends to the Low­er East Side cob­bler shop he inher­it­ed from his miss­ing father. Max is joined on the side­walk by Jim­my (Steve Busce­mi), the bar­ber who owns the shop next door. When Jim­my press­es Max on his roman­tic prospects, Max express­es sec­ond thoughts about his life as a cob­bler. He says that being a cob­bler was his father’s thing. This is very important.

Car­men (Melanie Diaz) comes into Max’s shop as he’s eat­ing a sand­wich and drink­ing a Coke. The sand­wich is not impor­tant – pay no mind to the sand­wich. Car­men is a moti­vat­ed young woman who’s work­ing to reju­ve­nate the city and stop the ris­ing tide of gen­tri­fi­ca­tion. Gen­tri­fi­ca­tion is of mild impor­tance. It’s less impor­tant than what Jim­my says to Max, but more impor­tant than Max’s sandwich.

She assumes that he wants to stay, but maybe he doesn’t? She’s all, ​“Peo­ple like you need to stay,” and he’s all, ​“Maybe I don’t want to stay.” But then she takes him out­side and tells him to look at the city. And he does, he looks at the city. And he’s like wow, that sure is a city all right. So he signs her peti­tion with one hand while hold­ing his corn beef and rye sand­wich in the oth­er. And then Car­men tells him to come to a ral­ly to save some old guy who’s a neigh­bor­hood icon, but it kind of feels like she might actu­al­ly be invit­ing him to a sex ral­ly. Jim­my comes out of his bar­ber­shop, per­haps a lit­tle too curi­ous if Max got Carmen’s num­ber, and at this time I’d like to remind you again that this is very important.

When the work­day is over, Max schleps home to the Crown Heights house he shares with his moth­er, who has severe demen­tia and is very Jew­ish. She tries to microwave her purse! What a moron.

Method Man comes into Max’s shop, and calls him ​“Shoe­man.” Like he’s a super­hero. ​“God bless Ameri­co­la,” he says. He has a pair of shoes that he wants to get fixed – ​“They need new soles.” Do you get it? Like… do you get it? Soles? Souls? Some­one fund­ed this film with actu­al human money.

Any­way, Max’s stitch­ing machine breaks. Oy vey, what a shlemiel! But then he finds an old stitch­er in the base­ment, one that his dad taught him to use when he was lit­tle. ​“My dad threw it away,” Max says to Jim­my, who hap­pens to be lurk­ing in his base­ment at this exact moment, ​“Just like he threw away his fam­i­ly.” You guys, I can’t believe I still have to stress this to you, but the fact that Jim­my is lurk­ing in Max’s base­ment is very impor­tant. It is very, very impor­tant. It’s the most impor­tant thing there is.

Max, wait­ing for Leon to return for his shoes, notices that he wears the same size. So he tries them on. OH MY GOD MAX HAS TURNED INTO LEON!

The stitch­er has mag­i­cal pow­ers! He trans­forms into the own­er of whoever’s shoes he wears. Mon­tage!!! He’s a black guy. He’s a Chi­nese guy! He’s a dead guy (com­plete with zom­bie make­up). He’s a trans woman in high heels! He’s set­ting screen rep­re­sen­ta­tions of all of these peo­ple back by 30 years! ​“I could be any­body I want!” He says aloud, not real­is­ing that it comes off like a threat.

Where the film goes from there… you wouldn’t believe me if I told you (I under­stand that this will sound entic­ing, but the end­ing is pos­si­bly the most dement­ed thing that has ever been staged for pub­lic con­sump­tion). All the same, it’s safe to say that the plot will elic­it a num­ber of ques­tions from any­one who hap­pens to find them­selves ensnared in its almost impos­si­bly stu­pid web.

Ques­tions like:

– What? – Is this actu­al­ly hap­pen­ing? – How did any­body think this movie was a good idea? – What the shit is up with the pick­les? – Maybe I should give up on this whole ​“watch­ing movies for mon­ey” thing and go to busi­ness school like my father want­ed. – That wasn’t a ques­tion. I have lost all sense of myself. – That wasn’t a ques­tion, either. – I… what?! – I’m so sor­ry, dad.

The Cob­bler is a direct chal­lenge to exis­tence. In its own, per­verse way, this movie is more effec­tive at con­fronting view­ers with the cold fact of their mor­tal­i­ty than the great­est mas­ter­works of Ing­mar Bergman.

I just can’t take this film seri­ous­ly. Per­haps I could’ve put in a prop­er effort if I’d been tasked with writ­ing about it dur­ing its improb­a­ble 2014 fes­ti­val run, or ear­li­er this year when it was released in the Unit­ed States. But now… what is there to say? Quoth Kurt Von­negut: ​“Every­thing is sup­posed to be very qui­et after a mas­sacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a mas­sacre, things like ​‘Poo-tee-weet?’”