FATHERS' DAY
A film review by Eric C. Robinette
Copyright 1997 Eric C. Robinette
C-
Starring Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Nastassja Kinski. Charlie Hofheimer Written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel Based on the film ``Les Comperes'' by Francis Veber. Directed by Ivan Reitman.
I am a huge Paul McCartney fan.
Why do I begin my review of Father's Day by saying that? Because it's basically the reason I went to see the movie this weekend even after the tepid reviews came in, and why I wrote what you're reading. I wanted to hear McCartney's new song "Young Boy" which I knew played over the opening credits. It's a good thing it did, too. The lift I got from hearing the typically jaunty McCartney melodies was about the only fun to be had in the movie.
What's depressing about the movie is not that the jokes are bad. Even a bad joke can inspire laughs in a retroactive kind of way. It's that there aren't that many of them. Father's Day has no comic zing it; the movie just sits there, seemingly expecting to wring laughs out of the mere sight of Robin Williams and Billy Crystal sharing the screen Unfortunately, the washcloth that is this movie is so dry there's nothing to wring out of it.
When I first heard the storyline, I wasn't that encouraged: "Woman (Nastassia Kinski) dupes former flames Williams and Crystal into believing they are the father of her wayward son so they will both go looking for him." It sounded like a setup for some saccharine baby boomer/male bonding scheme, and my suspicions were proved correct.
But even that would have been okay if someone had thought to write some jokes into the script or tell what story there is with some kind of flair. As it is, Ivan Reitman's usually enthusiastic direction is completely missing and is replaced by a "point the camera this way, then that way" strategy.. Even the mild "Junior" was filmed with more pizzazz. Crystal and Williams don't seem to be in the mood to inject the movie with their usually boundless energy For whatever reason, they seem content to coast on characters with chips on their shoulders and a couple of mildly amusing traits which elicit only the occasional "heh, heh." Worst of all, it seems like Reitman's edited out most of the moments where Crystal and Williams improvised, which provide the only "HA-HA HAAA''S
What went wrong? Before the movie made it's way into the theaters, the prospect of teaming two of the funniest comic actors with a winning writing team and director seemed like it couldn't miss. But miss it did, largely because, I think, usually reliable writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel got a serious case of the mushies. Instead of One of the "funny" scenes in the film is the old "generation gap" gag.: Williams and Crystal start moovin' and groovin' to an old Sly and the Family Stone tune so the son shakes his head in amusment and asks them if they were "freaks." Heh-heh.
What's all the more dispiriting about all this is that this kind of male bonding stuff can be funny, and it's not in this movie, even with all the top-notch talent on board.. Ganz and Mandel themselves pulled it off quite nicely in City Slickers, and even the sentimental Nine Months had it's moments of bawdy laughs. Sigh--a movie is really disappointing when it brings back fond memories of Tom Arnold.
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