The Cobbler (2014) BluRay

Daddy Izz 11/17/2021

A cobbler, bored of his everyday life, stumbles upon a magical heirloom that allows him to become other people and see the world in a different way.

The Cobbler is a 2014 American magic realism comedy-drama film directed by Tom McCarthy and co-written by McCarthy with Paul Sado. The film stars Adam Sandler, Cliff "Method Man" Smith, Ellen Barkin, Melonie Diaz, Dan Stevens, and Steve Buscemi. It was screened in the Special Presentations section at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. The film was released on March 13, 2015, by Image Entertainment. The film was panned by critics and was a box office bomb.

SYNOPSIS THE COBBLER

In the Lower East Side NYC in 1903, a group of Jewish men gather in a cobbler's shop to discuss a neighborhood problem. Gergerman has been threatening their businesses, harassing them and their families. Handing a pair of Gergerman's shoes to the cobbler, Pinchas Simkin, he takes them to the shop basement and uses a special stitching machine on the shoes. His young son Herschel enters, and he explains how important the machine is.

In the present day, the great-grandson of Pinchas, Max Simkin is the cobbler. Jimmy operates the barber shop next door. Carmen Herrera, a young woman of the Lower East Side is fighting against large developers who are tearing down parts of the neighborhood to build huge complexes. Max doesn't seem to care at all about the shop. He lives at home with his ailing mother Sarah and wishes they could see Max's father again.

Local thug Leon Ludlow brings his shoes to the shop to resole them. Max's current stitching machine fails, so he uses the old one. He checks Ludlow's shoe size; it's 10 1/2, the same as his. Max tries the shoes on and transforms into Ludlow. He uses the machine on other shoes, and realizes what he can do with it.

Max experiments living as someone else, going to Chinatown as a Chinese man, going to a restaurant as one and leaving as another, not paying. Taryn brings in her British boyfriend Emiliano's shoes, and Max uses them. As Emiliano, he goes to a bar, noticed by beautiful women. One approaches him, noting that she once saw him leaving with a man. Going to his home as Emiliano, he finds Taryn taking a shower and she invites him to join her. He eagerly starts to undress, then realizes if he takes off a shoe, he will no longer be Emiliano, so he leaves. Max decides to make his mother happy by using the shoes of his father Abraham. Having dinner with Sarah as Abraham gives her one more night of happiness.

The next morning Sarah has died, so he and his family sit shiva for the week. When he returns to work, Ludlow demands his shoes back or he'll kill Max. Using several pairs of shoes to disguise himself, Max follows Ludlow to his apartment. Using Ludlow's shoes, he meets his girlfriend Macy, who has apparently been abused by Ludlow. Max searches for his valuable watches, which he takes; he also finds a cache of weapons. The real Ludlow returns and starts to strangle Max (still in Ludlow's shoes) until Max tasers him. Ludlow-Max goes with two associates of Ludlow where a man is held captive for stealing. About to kill him on Ludlow's orders, Ludlow-Max tells them to free him. Then they go meet slum lord Elaine Greenawalt, who gives him lots of money to buy out a man from his building.

Max goes back to Ludlow's wearing the transsexual's stilettos. Ludlow attacks, but stops when Max removes a shoe and reverts to himself. Resuming the attack, Max kills Ludlow with the shoe. Max turns himself in to the police, but when they go to the apartment, all the evidence is gone. He is left, alone and confused. Jimmy confronts Max about his recent odd behavior, telling Max the secret, that his father did the same thing before he disappeared.

Max goes with Carmen to Mr. Solomon's, the man Greenawalt wants to buy out. He refuses to leave, as he has lived there for decades and raised his daughter there. Max devises a plan to trick Greenawalt into giving him a large amount of money while still letting Solomon keep his home. When she realizes she's been played, she goes to Solomon's and threatens to kill him. She is caught on camera, and later arrested. Max's life starts to go back to normal. Carmen goes into the shop and invites him to dinner. He later goes to Ludlow's as Ludlow, giving the watches to Macy, telling her he's sorry and that she deserves better. As he leaves, he is abducted by a group of men led by the man he had saved. They are about to drive off when their car is struck.

He wakes up in Jimmy's barber shop and is offered some water and a pickle, as pickles help with the transition from one body to another. Max asks how he knew that, Jimmy takes off his shoes revealing that he is actually Abraham, his father. The real Jimmy is in the Caribbean. Both elated and angry, Max hugs his dad, then is shown a huge collection of shoes that he's gathered over the years. Abraham then takes Max in his limo through the city, telling him the story of how the stitching machine came into their family.