CLIFFORD
A film review by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1994 Michael John Legeros
Directed by Paul Flaherty Written by Jay Dee Rock and Bobby Van Hayes Stars Martin Short, Charles Grodin, Mary Steenburgen, and Dabney Coleman MPAA Rating "PG" Running Time Approx. 90 minutes
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"You don't know the first thing about Hitler/Clifford."
- Charles Grodin, correcting himself.
Martin Short as a troublesome ten-year-old. That's it, that's all, that's the whole, "hilarious" concept of CLIFFORD--the newest nugget of fool's gold mined from the vaults of bankrupt Orion Pictures.
Actually, Short is only one-half of the Equation That Should Add Up. CLIFFORD costars always-annoyed Charles Grodin as Martin, the unfortunate uncle who must care for Clifford (Short) while his parents party in Hawaii. Martin wants his fiance, Sarah (Steenburgen), to believe that he likes kids, so he unknowingly welcomes the miniature Hilter into his home....
Needless to say, CLIFFORD must've looked *great* on paper.
Picture Martin Short, standing small and wearing knee pants, nagging Charles Grodin in scene after scene after scene until the expected blow-up and resulting comeuppance. Easy, right?
(Actually, the title-role was written for a *child* actor. But I'm sure Kit Culkin would've passed on it, anyway. :-))
A host of problems conspire against CLIFFORD.
The script never defines Clifford's character and Short plays the role *way* too broadly. Unlike, say, Tom Hanks in BIG, Short plays Clifford with too much intelligence to be comfortably cute or completely cranky. Frankly, it's like watching a bad SCTV or SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE skit gone long. Or, in this case, 75 minutes long. The script also sets up a host of absurd situations--from the awful framing device to a super-stupid "Dinosaurland" climax that isn't even a JURASSIC PARK slam because CLIFFORD was filmed *before* RAPTOR'S LIST.
Charles Groden has done better comedy--even opposite enormous dogs that get named after deaf composers and, somehow, find their way on stage during boring Academy Award ceremonies. He gets a couple good scenes and that's about it. Neither Mary Steenburgen nor Dabney Coleman are as lucky.
BOTTOM LINE: Skip it.
Grade: D
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