Movie Monday- The Cobbler

Have you ever wanted to watch a movie that was about “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes” but never had the chance? Adam Sandler’s latest film to head almost-straight-to-Netflix, The Cobbler, takes that idiom literally, leading us on a magical comedic ride that is entertaining enough to keep your interest through the full 98 minute runtime. Sandler’s character, Max Simkin, is the next in a long line of Cobblers that repair shoes in New York City for a living. After his motorized stitching machine breaks down, he’s forced to rummage through the basement of his father’s shop to find an old stitcher that runs manually. He repairs a customer’s shoes on the machine and notices that they are his size and decides to try them on- only to discover that he has become an exact copy of the customer who owns the shoes. After a brief scene of Max figuring out that it’s the stitcher that holds the magic the adventure begins and we are introduced to a myriad of “customers” that forgot or never claimed their shoes, each one being added to Max’s arsenal of new faces and bodies that he then uses to move the plot forward.

Voltage Pictures

Not surprisingly though, there is not a lot of depth to The Cobbler, as can be expected of Sandler’s films. For a movie that uses a phrase about experiencing life as another person Max doesn’t really get many chances to actually learn about what it’s like to be another person. There are several different customers that Sandler ends up becoming, and they range from people of different race and ethnicity, age, and even a transgender character. While there are a few moments where he feels the struggles that one of those people would feel, there is never any moment where you witness Max reflecting on those times. The moral of the story for him isn’t about learning to see things from a different perspective, but rather about choosing to do either selfish or selfless acts with the new power that he has obtained. It feels more like a super hero origin story than anything else and the ending even leads us into what could be a bigger universe of heroes and villains.

All this isn’t to say that the film has nothing to offer; it is entertaining and has some moments that leave you grinning as well as several good laughs. The plot is fairly predictable and there is a twist at the end that is pretty easy to see coming. The film almost feels like a spiritual sequel to his previous film, Click, in that Sandler gains some sort of magical ability through otherwise mundane objects. Unfortunately for The Cobbler, it isn’t quite as fun or entertaining as Click and lacks the supporting characters that made Click more interesting. Dustin Hoffman and Steve Buscemi provide supporting roles but neither is used to their full potential in the film. Method Man of the Wu Tang Clan plays both an antagonist as well as one of the physical forms for Max to take- it’s entertaining watching him go from gangster to nervous white guy, making him one of the more amusing actors in the film.

Voltage Pictures

Overall it’s not surprising that The Cobbler had such a limited theatrical release. Grossing a pitiful $24,000 in its run on the big screen, it made more sense for this film to seemingly go straight to video on demand. This isn’t a film you would pay to watch on the big screen unless you had nothing better to do with your time or money, but it makes for a perfect rainy day Netflix watch when you’re unsure about whether or not you want to start watching a new series or don’t quite want anything too heavy to think about. I give it a 2.5 out of 5.