Produced by Sandler's Happy Madison Productions in association with Relativity Media, That's My Boy was released in the United States on June 15, 2012, by Columbia Pictures, to a critical and commercial failure, grossing only $57.7 million against a $57.5–70 million budget and was negatively reviewed by critics.
Plot
In 1984, in Massachusetts, a teenage Donny Berger develops an infatuation with his middle-school teacher, Mary McGarricle. Initially, Mary appears repulsed by Donny's flirtations and punishes him with a month of detention. However, during this detention, she unexpectedly seduces Donny, and the two begin a sexual relationship. Their affair is publicly exposed during an auditorium assembly, leading to Mary's arrest and conviction for statutory rape. She receives a 30-year prison sentence, while the scandal inadvertently propels Donny into the spotlight as a child celebrity. When Mary becomes pregnant, custody of their unborn child is awarded to Donny's physically abusive father, with the legal provision that Donny will assume full custody once he reaches adulthood.
Twenty-eight years later, Donny has descended into a life of financial instability and alcoholism. He owes $43,000 in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and faces the threat of a three-year prison sentence. In a desperate gamble, he places a $20 bet on an 8000:1 underdog in an upcoming race, hoping for a windfall, while simultaneously devising a contingency plan in case the bet fails. For the past decade, Donny has been estranged from his adult son, who, to escape the stigma of his parents’ scandal, changed his name from Han Solo Berger to Todd Peterson and fabricated a story that his parents had died in an explosion. Todd has since built a successful career as a businessman and is preparing to marry his fiancée, Jamie, at his boss Steve Spirou's Cape Cod estate.
Meanwhile, Randall Morgan, a television producer familiar with Donny's former celebrity, offers him $50,000 to orchestrate a reunion with Todd and Mary. Discovering Todd's wedding plans through a newspaper, Donny travels to Cape Cod uninvited. Todd, unprepared for the encounter, introduces Donny as merely an old friend, feeling irritated by his father's popularity among the wedding guests. Initially reluctant to confront Mary, Todd's stance softens after Donny manipulates the wedding schedule—convincing Jamie's family to relocate the rehearsal away from churches and persuading Todd's friends to hold the bachelor party at a strip club. Reluctantly, Todd agrees to meet Mary in prison, but when a television crew intrudes on the meeting, he departs in disgust without signing a consent form.
The situation becomes more complicated when Donny discovers Jamie's multiple affairs with Steve and her brother Chad. Jamie attempts to cover her indiscretions by paying Donny $50,000 and providing excuses to Todd. Consumed by guilt, Donny interrupts the wedding to reveal the truth, simultaneously disclosing his paternal relationship to Todd. The revelation prompts Todd to break off his engagement, embrace Donny as his father, leave his corporate job, and reclaim his birth name, Han Solo.
In the aftermath, Han begins dating a strip club bartender, Brie, while offering Donny the financial gain from his newly inherited fortune. Donny refuses, choosing instead to take responsibility for his past mistakes. As he prepares to serve his prison sentence and eventually rekindle his relationship with Mary upon release, he discovers that his long-shot bet on the marathon has won $160,000, resolving his IRS debt and allowing him a measure of stability for the first time in decades.
The film was originally titled I Hate You, Dad, and then changed to Donny's Boy before the producers finally settled on That's My Boy.[4][5] Filming began on May 2, 2011, and ended on July 15, 2011.[citation needed]
The film grossed $36.9 million in the United States and $57.7 million worldwide, failing to recoup its $57–70 million budget, making it a financial failure.[2][1][8]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, That's My Boy has an approval rating of 21% based on 111 reviews and an average rating of 3.80/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "While it does represent a new foray into raunch for the normally PG-13 Sandler, That's My Boy finds him repeating himself to diminishing effect – and dragging Andy Samberg down with him."[9] On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 31 out of 100 based on reviews from 27 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[10] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A to F scale.[11]
Film critic Richard Roeper gave the film an F, calling it "an ugly, tasteless, deadly and mean-spirited piece of filmmaking," and would later call it the worst film of 2012.[12][13]Justin Chang of Variety called it "a shameless celebration of degenerate behavior, a work of relentless vulgarity and staggering moral idiocy."[14]Half in the Bag called the film "pathetic" and "painful", and went on to criticize Sandler as a comic, suggesting he was unable to create humor that was not based on childish jokes.[15]
Steve Baker, Ricky Blitt, Will Carlough, Tobias Carlson, Jacob Fleisher, Patrik Forsberg, Will Graham, James Gunn, Claes Kjellstrom, Jack Kukoda, Bob Odenkirk, Bill O'Malley, Matthew Alec Portenoy, Greg Pritikin, Rocky Russo, Olle Sarri, Elizabeth Wright Shapiro, Jeremy Sosenko, Jonathan van Tulleken, and Jonas Wittenmark (2013)
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