Grown Ups is a 2010 American buddy-comedy film starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider. Sandler, Rock, Schneider, and Spade, all joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in the 1990–1991 season; other actors Colin Quinn, Maya Rudolph, Tim Meadows and Norm MacDonald have also been SNL cast members. Sandler and Fred Wolf wrote the script and Dennis Dugan directed. The film was produced by Sandler’s production company Happy Madison and was distributed by Columbia Pictures.
In 1978, five childhood friends won their junior high basketball championship. During the celebration at a rented lake house, their coach “Buzzer” (Blake Clark) encourages them to live their lives in a similar way to how they played the game. Thirty-two years later, the five friends have since separated. Lenny Feder (Adam Sandler) is a high powered Hollywood talent agent who is married to Roxanne (Salma Hayek), a fashion designer. Eric Lamonsoff (Kevin James) claims he is now a co-owner of a lawn furniture company who is married to Sally (Maria Bello), who still breast-feeds their 4-year-old son. Kurt McKenzie (Chris Rock) is a stay at home father who is married to Deanne (Maya Rudolph), the primary breadwinner of the family. Rob Hilliard (Rob Schneider) is a thrice divorced pacifist vegan married to Gloria (Joyce Van Patten), who is 30 years older than he is. Marcus Higgins (David Spade) is a lazy womanizer. All of them regularly harass each other in comedic fashion throughout the movie; Lenny for being rich (although he tries to downplay it throughout the movie), Eric for being overweight, Kurt for being skinny and not being more useful, Rob for his relationship issues with his ex-wives and his current much older wife, and Marcus for being a slacker.
When they learn that Buzzer has died, the friends all return to New England with their families to attend his private funeral. Lenny rents the lake house for the 4th of July weekend for his friends to stay at, but Lenny can’t stay for the whole weekend because Roxanne has a fashion show in Milan. While at the lake house, Lenny is annoyed that their kids would rather play video games than spend time outdoors, so he and the others force their kids to spend more time outside while at the house, and when they let Eric try the rope swing he’s too afraid to jump off and injures a bird in the process. At a local restaurant, Lenny runs into his old nemesis Dickie Bailey (Colin Quinn). Dickie is still upset at Lenny because he allegedly had his foot out of bounds when he made the long-ago game winning shot and challenges him and his friends to a rematch, but Lenny declines, declaring it a waste of time. During dinner, the group discusses spreading Buzzer’s ashes the next day, but Lenny says he can’t be there because of Roxanne’s fashion show. Roxanne angrily storms off because Lenny painted her negatively. She allows him to spread Buzzer’s ashes, but demands they leave early the following morning.
The next day, the five guys row out to an island to spread Buzzer’s ashes. Rob breaks down and tells the guys that he screwed up his previous marriages and that he’s nervous about meeting his daughters who are coming. They finally meet Rob’s daughters, Jasmine and Amber (Madison Riley & Jamie Chung), who seems too gorgeous to be Rob’s, and Bridget, who very closely resembles him, by Kurt saying “Now, THAT makes sense”. That evening, when Roxanne is packing, Becky’s tooth falls out, but Roxanne is too busy to notice and she tells her that she’ll put a dollar under her pillow later. When Becky asks why she would do it instead of the Tooth fairy, Roxanne tells Lenny that she’s worried that she ruined Becky’s childhood. When Lenny hears his kids supposedly talking on their cellphones, he comes into their bedroom to find them actually talking on “cup phones” with the other kids. Happy that the kids are starting to have the same kind of fun he did at their age, he asks everyone to install cup phones around the house. Roxanne then tells Becky through the cup phone the truth about the Tooth Fairy. In the morning while packing the car, Roxanne sees all the kids having fun down by the lake and decides that they can’t leave the lake house. Happy with his wife’s new attitude, Lenny decides they should head to a waterpark for a day. Many disasters happen such as the chemical in the kiddie pool which turns urine to blue and Wiley’s (Steve Buscemi) failure in a zip-line diving stunt making him end up in the hospital.
Back at the house, Deanne becomes suspicious of Kurt when she sees him spending time with Rita, Lenny’s nanny. That evening, the adults spend time together drinking and dancing, while reminiscing about their pasts. Roxanne then confronts Lenny about the fact that he canceled their Milan plane reservations before the funeral behind her back. Lenny claims that he felt their time at the lake house was necessary because their kids were becoming too spoiled. Deanne confronts Kurt about supposedly flirting with Rita. Kurt assures her that he wasn’t flirting with her, but he enjoyed having an actual conversation with her because he doesn’t feel like he gets that with Deanne. Deanne offers to take him out on more dates. Eric then admits to the group that he isn’t co-owner of a lawn furniture company and that he was laid off two months ago. He just didn’t want everyone to think of him as a failure. Lenny resolves to offer Eric an investment opportunity. Gloria then tells everyone that despite their recent hostility, she senses love between everyone.
In the film’s conclusion, the group then head off to a 4th of July barbecue, where they are once again challenged by Dickie and his friends to a rematch of the basketball game. Rob suggests that their coach would want them to take the challenge and despite everyone’s being out of shape and Rob’s injury, they agree to a game. The game is close, but most of the players get too tired to continue, leaving only Lenny and Dickie on the court. They bring out their sons to continue playing. When Lenny has the chance to make the game winning shot, he deliberately misses and allows Dickie to win, giving him a sense of victory. Lenny and the others take the loss in stride. The movie ends with Marcus drunk and purposely starts a game with arrow roulette and everyone runs in fear, with one of Dickie’s best friends, Wiley being pierced with the arrow in his foot. He happily declares, “We win again!” before passing out.