Call me a heel, but this is hardly a shoo-in for the sole-searching tale you’ve been missing. :tongue: Last year, The Cobbler played to audiences in the dozens and I missed it completely. Do you have any idea how difficult it is for an Adam Sandler film to be released without my knowledge? Probably about the same odds of a snail covering its tracks.
A century ago, the Simkin family was given a magic shoe repair machine. I suppose it’s a good thing they’re cobblers, then, because, like, if they’d been given a magic laundry press, well, they might never know. This makes me wonder how many magic artifacts throughout the world are going to waste. Naturally, the giftee and ancient Simkin progenitor failed to divulge the secret to anybody, including his kin, so Magic Mac sits in the basement collecting dust for decades.
Present day milquetoast Max Simpkin (Sandler) inherited The Cobbler business after his father’s own disappearance. For a NYC small business owner, his life is uneventful. He hangs out, repairs shoes, and shares pickles with the barber next door (Steve Buscemi). His ambitions reach exactly as far as the front door to his shop, so, luckily for him, alligator-skin-shod Ludlow (Method Man) breaches that barrier with a rush order. The regular machine breaks and Max is forced to repair the shoes with relic. The replacement machine has to be unearthed and proves clunky, but functional. No big whoop. Max, however, noting that he a Ludlow share the same shoe size, cannot resist trying on the newly soled gator-skins. And *POOF* Max is Max on the inside and Ludlow on the outside. Ok, didn’t see that coming.
Suddenly, The Cobbler erupts in a carnival of show repair, Max steadily repairing and claiming 10.5s from every corner of the five boroughs in order to try on personalities, each distinguishable with the commonality of this awful Hogwarts-type scarf Max wears. The movie had some fun here, but I found great opportunities missed. For one thing, what does Ludlow represent? He has the appearance of a thug, but his tone is on the cryptic side like the movie knows he is supposed to point Max to the magic. Turns out, he’s just a thug. Boo. There’s also Max’s limited imagination. You can assume any personality you want and you’ve parlayed that into car theft and seeing a hot girl naked. (The latter forces the issue as she gets out of the shower looking for fun and Max only then realizes that the shoes have to remain on his feet for his libido to be satisfied.) Weirder still is when Max assumes his father’s personality to give his mother one last smile before her death.
The adage, “you have to walk in somebody 
else’s shoes to know the person” was not meant to be taken literally. Tell The Cobbler that. And as we imagine Adam Sandler assuming a dozen or so different bodies, he actually isn’t doing any work at all; you’ve asked a dozen actors to be Adam Sandler and we’re doing the rest imagining we’re seeing Sandler in disguise. Personally, I would have a hard time not immediately breaking into “My Little Chicken,” or Happy Gilmore quotes.
There’s some fun here and I like the subdued Sandler more than the antic Sandler these days, which is a sad statement on its own. You can see the “surprise” ending to this film parading in wingtips down Broadway long before resolution. Mostly I’d call The Cobbler a waste of unused magic, like an old sole-repair machine stuck under a heap in the basement for decades.
Sandler repairs shoes with soles lacked or
In need of another footwear factor
Stepping into a pair
He becomes them, how rare!
Next time, don the shoes of an actor
Rated PG-13, 99 Minutes
D: Tom McCarthy
W: Tom McCarthy, Paul Sado
Genre: Adage brought to life
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Cobblers
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Dry cleaners
