(rated PG-13, 71 mins.) Davey Stone (Adam Sandler) is a 33-year-old party animal finding himself in trouble with the law after he goes too far. In keeping with the Holiday spirit, the Judge gives Davey one last chance to redeem himself by spending the holidays performing community services as the assistant referee for the youth basketball league. Thinking he’s got off easy, things are fine until he meets Whitey Duvall (voice of Adam Sandler too) the eccentric elf-like head referee and his fraternal twin sister, Eleanor (Adam Sandler’s voice again). If you add the equation of Sandler, toilet humor (literally, with an outhouse scene), the Hanukah song, toss in animation, you surely add up a lot of success. Sandler finds his niche post recent flops with the same ole same ole, by giving us a story that turns Christmas upside down and a lesson full of situations the audience can ease into, with cartoon characters we care for more than his usual real life sidekicks. The only annoyance is the finger-scratching-chalk-board voice of Eleanor. And, remember since the partying lesson is geared to his audience of teens, parents with small children beware. This ain’t no “Frosty The Snowman.”
