Movies
World's Greatest Dad
Pitch-dark comedy, truly (if briefly) switching off the lights midway through, built around a hangdog high-school poetry teacher and unpublished writer, as well as around his more popular and successful rival in the English department (printed in The New Yorker on first try), his sweet-talking secret lover in the art department (“Cupcake,” “Cheesecake,” etc., addressed in turn as “Honeydew Melon,” “Watermelon Sherbet,” etc.), and his nihilistic unreachable sullen son: “Movies are for losers and art fags.” The last-mentioned (the Brillo-haired, potty-mouthed Daryl Sabara), a monstrous mutation of a teenage type, attracts the strongest interest, but he — without giving away too much of the plot — cannot sustain the film. Several of the supporting characters are well and amusingly delineated, but in the title role, Robin Williams, he of the fishhooked mouth and stitched-tight eyes, proves too heavy for the lighter bits and too light for the heavier. His microphone mercifully is cut during his impassioned pitch for the Oscar, letting a muffling pop song carry the emotion. Bobcat Goldthwait, who puts in an appearance uncredited as a Hollywood limo driver, wrote and directed in his fatiguingly combative manner. With Alexie Gilmore, Henry Simmons, Geoff Pierson, and “introducing Bruce Hornsby as ‘Bruce Hornsby’.” 2009.
Reader Rating:
MPAA Rating: R
Length: 98
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