Adam Sandler's crude, coarse 'Boy' is embarrassingly bad

Throughout “That’s My Boy,” Adam Sandler’s new film — I’d say “new comedy” but I’m supposed to be in the truth-telling business — he constantly has a beer in his hand.

Budweisers, mostly, but also Rolling Rock, whatever. One assumes it’s product placement, but if that’s the case they should have carried if farther and given beers to the audience. It would have made the movie a lot easier to sit through.

Among the subjects played for “laughs” — statutory rape, incest, masturbation involving a picture of an old lady, sex with an old lady (the same one), vomiting, defecation, Vanilla Ice. I know, when Sandler’s not trying he’s an easy target, and he’s definitely not trying here. But honestly, this is one of those movies you feel stupider just for having sat through. I think I’m already worse at math.

The film begins in the 1980s with young Donny (Justin Weaver) hitting on his teacher, Miss McGarricle (Eva Amurri Martino). To his surprise and delight, it works; an affair ensues, but soon they’re discovered, she is arrested, sent away for 30 years — and has his baby. Donny becomes a media sensation, with everyone clamoring for his attention.

Cut to the present. Donny (now played by Sandler) is a mess, still milking his ’80s glory, such as it is, for everything he can — which isn’t much. Ms. McGarricle is still in prison, and his son, who he named Han Solo, bolted as soon as he turned 18. Plus, Donny needs more than $40,000 in back taxes or he’s going to go to prison himself.

Then he discovers that his estranged son, now calling himself Todd (Andy Samberg), is wealthy, and about to be married to the beautiful Jamie (Leighton Meester). He knows he can’t just show up and ask Todd for the money, but he has a plan: Maybe Donny can engineer a reunion between himself, Ms. McGarricle and Todd for a broadcast of a bottom-feeding talk show hosted by Randall Morgan (Sandler pal and sports guy Dan Patrick) at the prison where she’s being held.

So Donny shows up for the wedding festivities, uninvited, horrifying Todd, who has created a new identity and life for himself, which includes a past in which his parents were killed in an explosion. Donny is lewd, crude and generally disgusting — and the rich, uptight bunch gathered for the wedding loves him, much to Todd’s dismay.

Commence with the unlikely father-son bonding, achieved through drunkenness and violence, excess and ear-piercing. Along the way Donny manages to uncover secrets and pretty much enrich the lives of all those he comes into contact with; he’s like a dissipated wizard.

There are a few laughs here and there, mostly of the type that make you feel embarrassed afterwards. Sandler gives Donny one of his trademark annoying accents, grating from the start. To say much about the acting is probably to miss the point; this is another of those films that plays like Sandler and his friends and cohorts goofing together and charging an audience to watch.