3. Punch Drunk Love (2002)
With a 79% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, you might be wondering why
Punch Drunk Love is ranked in a list of "criminally underrated" Adam Sandler films, but one need only take a look at the film's paltry box office, which didn't even manage to break even, to see why. The problem with the film? It completely defied expectation in terms of what the vast majority of Sandler fans were used to seeing, even if it was probably all the better for it. As we sit on the eve of the release of
The Master, it baffles the mind that Paul Thomas Anderson would ever choose to cast Sandler as the lead in any of his films, but he apparently knew better than any of us, for the result is a rare thing: a critically acclaimed Sandler performance. Anderson takes many of the actor's familiar tropes - a downtrodden goofball character who has anger issues for one - and imbues them with a quirky, alternative sensibility, with unexpectedly fascinating results. It went largely unseen by most Sandler fans apparently, failing to do much business at the box office and now becoming regarded as a cult favourite.