Little Nicky

Little Nicky
Little Nicky promotional poster
Directed by	Steven Brill
Written by	Adam Sandler Steven Brill Tim Herlihy
Produced by	Jack Giarraputo Robert Simonds
Starring	Adam Sandler Patricia Arquette Harvey Keitel Rhys Ifans Tom 'Tiny' Lister, Jr.
Cinematography	Theo Van de Sande
Edited by	Jeff Gourson
Music by	Teddy Castellucci
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release dates	November 20, 2000 (USA)
Running time	90 min.
Language	English
Budget	$80,000,000

Little Nicky (2000) is a comedy film written, produced and starring Adam Sandler, Rhys Ifans, Tom 'Tiny' Lister, Jr., Harvey Keitel, Allen Covert, and Patricia Arquette co-star, with Robert Smigel providing the voice of a talking dog, Mr. Beefy.

Nicky, the only good-hearted son of Satan, goes on a quest to save his father from his evil brothers, Adrian and Cassius. On the way, he learns the basic differences between Earth and Hell (after dying several times), discovers what love is, and acquires a certain fondness for Popeyes Chicken.

Although the movie was one of Sandler's least profitable, it remains a cult classic amongst his fans.

Ozzy Osbourne appears briefly in this film as himself, biting the head off a bat. Other cameos include Dan Marino, Henry Winkler, Dana Carvey, Michael McKean, Rob Schneider, Carl Weathers, Rodney Dangerfield, Jon Lovitz (singing the same tune as was sung by his character in Sandler's The Wedding Singer), Reese Witherspoon, Ellen Cleghorne, Kevin Nealon, Quentin Tarantino and Fred Wolf. The Harlem Globetrotters also are featured in a scene.

Tagline:

• If your father was the devil, and your mother was an angel, you'd be messed up too.
• Be unafraid. Be very unafraid.
• Being evil, aint easy.

Story

Nicky is the only good hearted son of Satan, who is constantly bullied by his cruel brothers, Cassius, a violent, brutish thug who apparently hit Nicky in the face with a shovel giving Nicky his slightly crooked face and speech impediment, and Adrian, a calculating evil genius with demonic strategic-planning abilities.

Since the end of the last year of the reign of their father (Harvey Keitel) as ruler of hell approaches, he must choose one of his sons as his successor. Adrian and Cassius, seeing themselves each as the more likely candidate, (Cassius being so strong and tough, while Adrian being so ruthlessly cruel as well as intelligent), expect themselves to be chosen, while Nicky dreads the thought. However, in a surprise turn of events for the first two, their father chooses to continue his reign for another 10,000 years, reasoning that the key to ruling hell is maintaining a balance between good and evil and that none of his sons are ready because they still do not understand that. Obviously angered, Cassius and Adrian leave the throne room; Nicky follows shortly after a conversation with his father.

Adrian devises a plan for him and his brother to escape to Earth and corrupt souls there so that he and Cassius could rule there instead. They then escape through the fiery gates of hell and, because the fire flows in and not out, freeze them up thereby not allowing anymore souls to enter hell, confining them to purgatory. As a result, because no new souls can come in, their father begins to fall apart literally as his decomposition process begins. It is up to Nicky to go back to Earth, find his brothers and imprison them in a drinking flask and return to hell before his father fully decomposes in a week. Grudgingly, Nicky accepts, fearing for his father and the aftermath of his possible death. Unfortunately, he was only gone for (more or less) ten seconds because he was hit by a subway train, described by Nicky as "a big light, that was attached to a lot of metal!".

With help from a pair of Metalheads- John and Pete, a talking bulldog named Beefy, and his likely gay roommate Todd, Nicky successfully finds a girlfriend named Valerie (Arquette) in whom he later confides, and sets out to find his brothers. That proves to be difficult at first since they can possess people and effectively make themselves invisible. The only sign that Adrian or Cassius is in a body is that the feet are always smoking. However, as corruption begins to flood New York City, Nicky recognizes his brother Cassius' finger-clicking in the referee of the Harlem Globetrotters game and sets out to get him. After a (basketball) showdown, Nicky defeats Cassius, imprisoning him in the flask by luring him with 'super devil juice'.

They then celebrate at Todd's apartment where everyone is introduced (Nicky's father, Satan; Beefy, a talking bulldog from hell; and John and Peter, fans of Nicky and his father's work). Nicky then talks about Valerie and what Adrian made him say and do to her. He then visits her dorm, unfortunately finding the wrong room first. He finnaly finds Valerie and then Nicky is sprayed in the eyes with pepper spray, and falls off of the balcony. He stops above the ground and floats upward, resulting in another look at the nipple rubber (nicknamed "Nipples" by Nicky), and a punch to the face by Valerie. Everything is then explained to Valerie and they float above the city. The blind man (seen as a preacher in the movie, accusing Nicky as the devil and constantly resulting in injury, ending up burning in flames at the hell party) accuses Nicky again and calling Valerie an evil slut. Nicky punishes him with a cap and splashing water from a fire hydrant, bursting him into a shop. Nicky then answers Valerie "Nobody calls my girl an evil slut," after asking if he did that.

Nicky then sets out to find Adrian. However, Adrian is not so easily fooled, and, upon possessing the Chief of Police, sets out to arrest Nicky. The Metalheads betray him and give Nicky up to Adrian. However, their betrayal is actually a scheme to trap Adrian. Adrian grabs Valerie and threatens to kill her unless he drinks from the flask. Just as Nicky is about to drink from the flask, the talking bulldog appears and urinates an arrow into Adrian's leg, causing him to lose his grip on Valerie. Nicky tackles Adrian onto a subway rail, but Adrian grabs Valerie. Just at the last moment, Nicky throws his girlfriend off the rail. However, since they are the sons of Satan, they just go back to Hell. But only Adrian emerges, and he asks where his brother went.

Nicky, instead, ends up in heaven, due to the good deed he did just before he got hit. He finds his mother Holly (Reese Witherspoon) and Nicky is shocked to discover his mother is not a mountain goat as Adrian and Cassius told him, but an angel. While Nicky enjoys his stay in Heaven, Adrian is told that, with his father weakened, he can claim the Seat of Satan for himself. Adrian proceeds to grab his father's mouth and arms, the only remaining pieces of his father, and throws them away. Sitting down, Adrian grows horns, and the fires of Hell behind him grow in intensity.

Adrian summons a castle-like structure in Central Park, and declares that mankind shall be stripped of their souls by midnight. Receiving an orb of light from his mother, Nicky descends to Earth to battle Adrian. As the son of an Angel and the Devil, he possesses the powers of both goodness and darkness in him. After a fight (including a show of power, a pillowfight, and a three-way battle of brothers inside the flask), Nicky throws the orb from his mother onto the ground, calling forth Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy grabs Adrian, now transformed into a bat, and bites his head off. He then spits Adrian's head into the flask.

Nicky returns his brothers to Hell, rejuvenating his father to full health. Satan confesses he still loves Nicky's mother, and tells his son that "with his mom up high, and his dad down low, he can take the middle ground." Nicky returns to Earth to marry Valerie and have a son named Zachariah (although he remains the Son of Satan). But, while planting tomatoes, Valerie accidentally hits Nicky's face with a shovel (which disfigured it in the first place), fixing it. He's still no George Clooney. Beefy marries Heather, the rat he fell for, and they have the most disgusting toddlers ever (three have Heather's body and Beefy's head and face while the other two are vice-versa. Satan and Holly try to get back together, but it falls through and Satan is romantically linked to both the Blair Witch and Cher while Holly falls for her Aerobics instructor, Chris Farley. As for the two metalheads, they use the reward money to buy Led Zeppelin's touring aircraft, The Starship. However, since they forget to get a pilot, it crashes after takeoff and they die. However, they have never been happier, for in Hell, they live for the rest of eternity in Nicky's old bedroom.

Response

Critical reaction to the film was fairly poor. Comedian and former Mystery Science Theater 3000 host Michael J. Nelson named the film the worst comedy ever made.. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 23% approval rating.

Soundtrack

1. P.O.D. - School Of Hard Knocks
2. Incubus - Pardon Me
3. Deftones - Change (In The House Of Flies)
4. Cypress Hill - (Rock) Superstar
5. Insolence - Natural High
6. Linkin Park - Points of Authority
7. Disturbed - Stupify (Fu's Forbidden Little Nicky Remix)
8. Unloco - Nothing
9. Powerman 5000 - When Worlds Collide
10. Muse - Cave
11. Filter - Take A Picture
12. Deftones - Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away) (Acoustic)
13. AC/DC - Highway To Hell
14. Van Halen- Runnin' With The Devil

Trivia

• Angus Young of AC/DC was originally set to play the Devil, but dropped out a couple of weeks before shooting for unspecified reasons.
• Nicky has roots in a character named Gil Graham that Sandler portrayed on Weekend Update during his time on Saturday Night Live. Similarities include his speech pattern, his hairstyle, and his affinity for heavy metal music.
• The title character's name, Little Nicky, may be inspired from the skit "Respect" from Adam Sandler's album "What The Hell Happened To Me?" or from a minor character from the cult television series Twin Peaks.This can also be due to the fact that in many European countries "Old Nick" is a common nickname for the devil. The fact that he is the son of Satan would be a logical reason behind the name "Little Nicky"
• Each 10,000 years a new Devil is chosen to rule hell. The first was Lucifer (Rodney Dangerfield), who preferred to "rule in Hell than serve in Heaven".
• When Ozzy Osbourne says his single sentence to Nicky he speaks with a generic English accent as opposed to his actual Brummie accent - and he doesn't mumble, speaking more clearly
• Near the end of the film there is a reference to the movie Happy Gilmore. In Happy Gilmore, Sandler's character is taught to play golf by a former golf pro named Chubbs Peterson, who later dies when Happy tries to return the favor by presenting him with the dead crocodile that ate Chubbs' hand, which scared Chubbs and caused him to fall out a window. In Little Nicky, after saving the woman he loves moments before being hit by a train, Nicky goes to heaven where he is introduced to Chubbs by his mother. You can see Chubbs recognizes him from somewhere, but obviously shrugs it off, dancing and chanting the words "It's all in the hips," a phrase his character used often in Happy Gilmore, as he leaves.
• When Nicky gets killed by the bus and blood gets spattered on his two friends, the number 666 is made. At the basketball game when the camera shows his two friends again, the blood is all gone except the 666.
• When you first see Nicky, he is air guitaring to the opening chords of Van Halen's Running with the Devil
• After being shoved aside by Adrian, Rodney Dangerfield's character says, "Even in Hell, I don't get any respect".
• When Nicky is noticed by the foreign couple and they begin to speak in a different language to him, the camera switches to Nicky, who also begins speaking that language. If you look in the background in which Nicky is talking, you can see Tom's Restaurant, which is the restaurant commonly seen in Seinfeld.
• The Chicago album being played backwards is Chicago V, but the track being played is "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" which did not appear on Chicago V, but on Chicago's debut album called The Chicago Transit Authority.
• Dana Carvey (Referee) broke his ankle while filming the Harlem Globetrotters basketball game scene

Cameo

• Ozzy Osbourne as himself
• Dan Marino appears in the movie as himself, his character asking to continue with his team to win the Super Bowl.
• The religious mad man seen at various points in the film proclaiming the Devil's arrival is Quentin Tarantino.
• Henry Winkler appears as himself, being covered in bees by Adrian.
• Dana Carvey The possessed referee, who is ruining the Globetrotters' game.
• Reese Witherspoon She plays Nicky's mother.
• John Witherspoon (actor) He plays the flask thief.
• Carl Weathers He played Chubbs the golf (and apparently dance)instructor in heaven, who also appeared in Happy Gilmore.
• Bill Walton The commentator of the Globetrotters game.

External links

• Official site
• Little Nicky at IMDb
• Little Nicky at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Little Nicky Fanlisting