The trailer makes it looks like Adam Sandler gets all hard core and steals some jewelery or something like that. Is it just a bad caper flick?

He plays a gem dealer with a gambling addiction. There's really no "caper" to speak of. It's a constant dirge of yelling and swearing with an unlikeable protagonist who never stops f.ucking up. And the music score is a real head scratcher. It's like they reused the score from Logan's Run or something.

Thanks. The trailer didn't make it look interesting or appealing. How you described it makes it look even worse.

To be honest, I think this is a totally misleading post and summary from OP. If anything, it's like a train wreck where the train crashes hard, and horrific as it is, it's an absolute spectacle. There's no caper because it's not a heist flick. It's an agonising drama about a man's nose dive into oblivion - agonising in the context of hard to watch and bear, not agonisingly bad. It's definitely an unlikeable film, simply because of its subject and subject matter, but you'd be doing the film and yourself a disservice to dismiss it, as it's extremely compelling, masterfully put together and 100% deserves viewing. Also, you've never seen Adam Sandler turn in a performance like this. He utterly embodies the role and it's heart-breaking to see.

Sorry, but the resolution to this story is wholly unsatisfying. The story itself is meaningless, pointless, and fails to present a persuasive theory. You ever see the series "Vinyl?" Similarly, based on a guy who couldn't stop f.ucking up. At least in that series, the protagonist was likable, but you can't ask an audience to follow the exploits of such a man if he never redeems himself in any way. That show was cancelled after one season.

In this film, Sandler's character isn't even likable and an audience is supposed to care about him and care about what happens to him? At what point is an audience supposed to feel empathy for an affluent drug addicted f.uck up who cheats on his wife and cheats everyone he deals with in life? He has no redeeming personality traits whatsoever. None. He's a sh!tty father, a sh!tty husband, a sh!tty Jew, a sh!tty businessman, etc. He's even a shitty scam artist.

At what point would an audience be rooting for a morally bankrupt, unlikable protagonist? And you can't end a story the way they do in this film when the protagonist is completely unlikable to begin with. It makes NO sense.

I don't disagree with some of your criticisms of him as a character, but I'm not clear why the audience rooting for a character is mandatory in a good film? There are tonnes of spectacular films with unlikeable protagonists. And even if that were the case, are you saying there weren't moments when he has everything riding on a certain event, that you weren't just willing it to go right for him, for once? It seems like he's forever on the cusp of getting his head above water, but his character is completely impotent to change anything about his situation, no matter how hard he tries.

This film is kinda like a whirlwind tornado, it plays out leaving total destruction everywhere, it doesn't do anything positive, but just watching it reap chaos is enthralling. Personally, I didn't see the ending coming, and I found it, and the whole film, profoundly sad and quite strangely affecting.

No, once I came to understand the guy was an as.shole, which was pretty quick, I did not care if he succeeded or not. That's one of the major problems with the film.

The way films work is, an audience is taking the film journey WITH the protagonist, which means they have to at the very least find them admirable in some way. More often than not, protagonists are written and acted to be likable. Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood was an as.shole, but he was so driven, hard working, and ingenious that an audience couldn't help but admire and like him and hence, want him to succeed. Not to mention that he DID have some redeeming qualities that showed he was humane.

Sandler's character is just an as.shole. I cared more about his poor wife and kids than I did about him. I cared more about the bookies he kept stiffing than I did about him. Did I want him to win in the end? No, actually, I didn't even care at that point.

Adam Sandler whining on twitter about not being nominated, LOL. As if.

https://twitter.com/AdamSandler/status/1216750665923325952

I AM SURE IF YOU KEEP REPEATING YOURPERSONAL FEELINGS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN UNDER THE GUISE OF "FACT"..SOONER OR LATER WE WILL JUST RELENT AND YOUR BRAIN WHIMS WILL BECOME LAW.

Adam Sandler is a low brow goofy funny guy who has to prove his dramatic acting chops now and then. He first did it in Punch Drunk Love and now this. He knows he is not going to be taken seriously in Waterboy or Big Daddy. He also gets cast by people who see that he can play a funny douchebag and can play a serious douchebag. That's all. If the flick is too one sided heavy for you then that's ok. Other comics did the same.

Yep, and poor Jim Carrey, no Oscar. I thought Sandler was very good in PDL, as well as in Reign Over Me, but this title is pure garbage.

I'm convinced however that Sandler doesn't understand film storytelling:

"If I don’t get it, I’m going to f–king come back and do one again that is so bad on purpose just to make you all pay. That’s how I get them,” he said.

I found it entertaining but I will definitely agree it's overrated. If it would have been nominated for anything at the oscars then it would have been undeserving. This was a 7/10 for me. I liked good time better and I would never watch this film again.

"Entertaining," maybe, but a terrible story, and I have to wonder if an actor was ever nominated for best actor in a terribly made film? I doubt it.

I completely agree with the OP. Once I saw the film, I thought it was pretty bad. What made me dislike it was its unsympathetic and stupid protagonist, as well as the constant shouting. The fact that the filmmakers want to portray life’s conversations as real as possible is not enough reason for making people scream in every scene.

Then, I began to look at the film’s reviews. I was surprised that everyone liked it. Most film critics, youtubers and bloggers seemed to have joined the bandwagon of admiring Uncut Gems. Does the film have an amazing marketing campaign or have the Safdie brothers created a cult following that likes everything they make? It amazes me even more that there are very few people bashing the film, since must on-line users overlook its flaws. I seriously hope this is NOT the future of cinema.

What everyone seems to argue is that the film’s purpose is stressing its audience, which is why some people – like me – don’t like it. I find this explanation to be quite lame and unfair. The Safdie brothers seem to have a very undisciplined style, which needs to be grounded much more (I haven’t watched Heaven knows what _or G_ood Time). Shouting in every scene makes the shouting less impactful, in my opinion. Film is not real life, and dialogue needs conventions to sound plausible, without ever needing to be completely real. You don’t need a ten-year life span to write a screenplay that has characters constantly screaming at each other in every scene. Making them scream and shout is easy, but it is way more impactful and difficult to make them scream sporadically at key moments. Sooner or later, the shouting becomes a cheap gimmick that is more annoying than suspenseful.

SPOILERS – SPOILERS – SPOILERS – SPOILERS – SPOILERS – SPOILERS

Now, MongoLloyd is correct when mentioning the mistakes the writers made with the main character of Uncut Gems. This is the film’s main problem. By the 15-minute mark, I am already annoyed with the dialogue and hearing characters talk over each other (the dialogue shows little talent, really) and know how it all will end. As I see Sander’s character make bad decision after bad decision, I know he will die. The ending came as no surprise for me, as opposed to other people who loved the film.

We can even argue that that was the film’s point: to show a predictable bad ending for the main character so that the audience is worried and stressed out throughout the whole running time. Yet, we see over 2 hours of this. It is too much waiting for such a cheap pay-off. Had the movie been half as long and had better dialogue, then maybe this would’ve worked.

What makes it even much worse is the fact that Sandler’s character is never shown to be sympathetic at all. There is not a single scene where I can believe that he has a redeemable quality as a person. If this was the filmmaker’s intent, why make him a “victim” by the end? I didn’t feel pity or remorse for him by the end nor when he suffered at the hands of his bookie. I felt more sympathy for the guy who shot the protagonist, and I don’t believe that was the objective of both writer/directors. If any film fails in its intentions, then it is a failure. So why the high praise?

When the main character gets shot and killed and is shown to have an uncut gem on the inside, I just didn’t buy into any of it. Wouldn’t it make more sense to show a redeemable quality of Sandler’s character DURING the narrative (preferable on the first act) in order to justify that he was actually an “uncut gem” at the end, in other words a “good guy”? It just made no sense at all that he had a beautiful inner self at the very end, since we as an audience never got to see his good side during the whole story. Moreover, it is also very important to show this good side for the audience to care for him. Otherwise, why should I care over somebody who is a low-life? Making good protagonists that are unloving scum is possible, when carried out appropriately.

In other words, being the protagonist doesn’t make you sympathetic in and of itself, but showing redeemable qualities. Only if you show someone redeemable the audience can empathize with him/her. Even if the film showcases the exploits of a scumbag.

The film is not too good. Everything you guys say about Sandler's Howard Ratner from being unsympathetic to impossible to respect, is agreeable. I felt the film was nice to look at. Also, the dialogue did feel somewhat "realistic," but eventually phrases like "You're so extra" in the film will become passé, since they're slang.

In the film's last 20 minutes or so, I felt just like those collection toughs, trapped someplace with Ratner while he watches a stupid ball game! Storywise95 is right: I didn't need 2+ hours of this, and I won't get that time back, either!