The Ridiculous 6 (2015)

The Ridiculous 6 arrives as the first original film to bear the Netflix imprimatur, a distinction the streaming service has since spent a decade attempting to live down. Adam Sandler assembles his usual repertory of comic performers and points them westward, where six half-brothers discover a shared bank-robbing father and set off to ransom him. Critics responded with a unanimity rarely achieved in the profession, awarding the picture a zero percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That number is not a joke. It is a consensus.

The film's engagement with social consciousness is best described as accidental and adversarial. Its cast is superficially varied, with Terry Crews, Jorge Garcia, and a large Native ensemble on hand, though the diversity functions as raw material for ethnic gags instead of any inclusive purpose. A dozen Native performers and the cultural advisor walked off the set in protest, citing degrading portrayals of Apache culture and of women. Netflix countered that the whole enterprise was a satire of Western stereotypes, a defense that requires the audience to already agree. Women exist here as prizes and punchlines. Race appears only as a punchline. There is no LGBTQ presence, no environmental conscience, no economic critique of any kind, no affirmation of body or mind. Lil' Pete's cognitive limitations are a running gag, not a statement. The film has no interest in instructing anyone. It would rather offend, and it does so with a shrug.

What remains is a comedy of the older, blunter school, one that mistakes volume for wit and discomfort for edge. It lectures no one. It simply lingers, like a hangover on a Sunday, and asks to be forgiven for being ridiculous. We can note the request. We need not grant it.