Review: Adam Sandler gets serious (with perfect comic timing) in ‘Uncut Gems’

The newest Adam Sandler movie, which is also the newest Safdie Brothers movie, makes for a frantic, shocking, nervous, sweaty time at the cinema. It’s a movie that offers joyous highs and abysmal lows. Some of it will make you laugh, some of it will make you squirm.

It’s not the kind of Sandler film that will appeal to those longtime fans who bow down to his loud and goofy “Happy Gilmore” side. This shows off the talents of those “other” Sandlers, the ones in “The Wedding Singer” and “Funny People” and the sadly overlooked “The Meyerowitz Stories.”

It’s the kind of film that fans of the Safdie Brothers’ earlier efforts, “Heaven Knows What” and “Good Time,” will be expecting, but this one turns up the intensity meter just a little higher.

“Uncut Gems” (rated R; in select theaters now in New York and Los Angeles, goes nationwide Christmas Day) is the story of a man with a gambling problem. That would be Howard (Sandler), who owns a jewelry showroom in New York’s Diamond District, and who is addicted to betting on basketball games, and who never seems to have much luck coming his way. He borrows money to make bets, loses the bets, borrows more money – from other people – to pay off the debts, then borrows more – from yet others – to make more bets.

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In the film’s 2010 opening sequence, set in Ethiopia, a huge black opal is found in a mine. Cut to two years later, and an unpleasant scene in New York, with Howard being accosted by a couple of thugs who remind him that he’s overdue in his payments to a loan shark named Arno (Eric Bogosian). “I’m good for it,” he says. “I’m about to close a big deal.” You have to wonder how many times he’s said that.

Then it’s off to Howard’s small, crowded showroom, just as a package arrives, one that makes him almost jump for joy, because it’s that big black opal – that “big deal” he was talking about, which he bought at a bargain and intends to sell at auction for a fortune.

But a wealthy customer in the showroom, Kevin Garnett, the former Boston Celtics forward, playing himself, sees the opal, decides it’s a good luck charm, and says he must have it, even if for only one night, and will trade his championship ring for collateral.

Nothing good can come of this. All sorts of people are after Howard for the money he owes them – Arno’s main thug, Phil (Keith Williams Richards) is the scariest – he can’t find the opal when he needs it, an affair he’s having with the aggressive and demanding Julia (Julia Fox) is proving difficult, his long-suffering wife Dinah (Idina Menzel) has had about enough of his shenanigans, and that auction doesn’t go quite the way he hoped it would.

Accompanied by a loud, annoying electronic score (perfect for the mood the Safdies are setting here), this becomes an up-close look at a man in turmoil, a guy who regularly hits rock bottom, then manages to fall even lower. Nothing goes right for Howard, and even though most of his misfortune comes from his own doing, you feel some sympathy for him.

That’s due to the Safdies’ writing, but also to Sandler’s manic performance. “You need to calm down,” Howard is told time and again. But he doesn’t know how. An interesting character trait is revealed as he tries, unsuccessfully, to be polite, even when he’s yelling and cursing at people. It all ends up to be a film in which both Sandler and the Safdies are pulling out all the stops, and it works. Yet, while all of the unpleasantness is spinning around the story and characters, there are a few oddly funny lines of dialogue mixed in, and credit goes to Sandler for knowing exactly how to use his gift of comic timing to deliver them.

That part is for the Sandler fans. For basketball fans, there’s some footage of the Boston Celtics/Philadelphia 76ers 2012 playoffs. For those who have joined the Safdies bandwagon, you’re familiar with their penchant for violence. And you have a good idea of where and how all of this is going to end. The rest of you have been warned.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: ‘Uncut Gems’ review: Adam Sandler is a seriously great actor