November 8, 2009

World's Greatest Dad

Data
Title: World's Greatest Dad
Year: 2009
Length: 99 minutes
Director: Bobcat Goldthwait
Writer: Bobcat Goldthwait
Starring: Robin Williams, Alexie Gilmore, Daryl Sabara
Music: Gerald Brunskill (and non-original music)

My reaction
Synopsis: a failed writer exploits his douchebag son's death
How I saw it: in the theater, yesterday
Concept: Indifferent.
Story: Terrible. It's the old web-of-lies formula from bad sitcoms. There's darkness and satire layered on top of it, so the movie has a chance, but it's still the mother of all horrible plot formulas.
Characters: Good. Thanks entirely to the acting. Williams somehow manages to take Goldthwait's bad script and pull a sympathetic and real character out of it.
Dialog: Great.
Pacing: Bad. Felt like at least two hours.
Cinematography: Good.
Special effects/design: Good.
Acting: Great. Good enough to make this movie worth watching.
Music: Great.
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay). Entertaining. If there's nothing else good playing, it's better than not seeing a movie, and you might like it if you like dark satire. It has got to be one of the worst-promoted movies ever, though - a dark indie drama with some black humor, advertised as a zany father-and-son comedy with a lesson to be learned. The poster and trailer are specially designed to ward off anyone who might like it. Half the people in the theater left within the first twenty minutes; I wonder if they thought they were going to see that thing with John Travolta in it.
Objective Rating: 7/10 (Pretty good) 2.6/4 (Good).

No comments:

Post a Comment