World's Greatest Dad - Movie Review

World's Greatest Dad is far from the world's dumbest movie...but that doesn't mean it isn't dumb. I've just seen a lot worse. I don't know what Robin Williams was thinking when he agreed to do this one, but it must have looked a lot different on paper. Williams has done some weird films, like The Final Cut, but this is one of his worst.

If you don't remember Bobcat Goldthwait, he was the shrill gang-banger turned cop from the old Police Academy movies. Goldthwait is actually brilliant. I remember seeing his stand-up routine where he turned Dr. Suess into Shakespeare. The routine was brilliant. Goldthwait wrote and directed World's Greatest Dad...it was not brilliant. Goldthwait is not a stranger to atypical movie subject matter (this one deals with auto erotic asphyxiation)...he did another called Sleeping Dogs Lie about a woman who admits to a lapse of judgment that involved her dog and a jar of peanut butter...to her boyfriend. I think Goldthwait likes to explore the uneasy recesses of human nature to find comedy and drama...but neither film worked for me.

Lance Clayton (Williams) is a Poetry teacher and failed writer. His miserable writing career is almost as sad as his parenting skills. He lacks backbone and can't seem to stand up to his loser son, Kyle (Daryl Sabara). Kyle engages in dangerous activity that ends up being fatal. Out of embarrassment, Lance writes a touching suicide note that reflected everything but Kyle's true abrasive personality. The note ends up getting published and the affect that the prose has on Kyle's classmates and faculty is bizarre. Lance sinks deeper and deeper into the fraud out of his own desire to be published.

Lance feeds into the hype surrounding his son's death while everyone in the school refuses to recognize reality. That is, everyone except Kyle's only true friend, Andrew (Evan Martin). Andrew continually questions Lance about Kyle, giving clues that he remains unconvinced by the moving excerpts "discovered" by his father. Lance eventually has an epiphany that causes him to challenge the conventional thinking, revealing his fraud and proceeding to dive naked into the school swimming pool.

The concept at work in World's Greatest Dad had plenty of potential. The dynamics of loss, grieving and the mass hype that seems to captivate groups provides fertile ground for this type of script. However, the characters were exceedingly flat and uninteresting. A meteor could have struck the school and killed every character and it would have been a dramatic improvement. The characters sucked. The dialogue was hackneyed and the interactions often cliche. I was sorely disappointed at what promised to be an interesting venture into the darker corners of humanity.

The acting wasn't bad considering. Robin Williams could always captivate me. But the characters were so one-dimensional that the acting seemed put on. No one could be as completely consumed by their personality as Kyle seemed to be. The kid had no redeeming traits and was a pain just to watch perform. Part of that pain was simply in this incessant nastiness. Just a glimmer of good might have made a difference. Evans was probably the most developed character and handled that responsibility well. His performance reflected the opportunity given to him to at least try and connect with the audience. I didn't think he was great. But he did alright with it. It is hard to bash the cast when the script leaves so little room for brilliance...but I was left unimpressed.

World's Greatest Dad contains some disturbing images and adult themes. Masturbation, voyeurism, nudity (if you want to see Robin Williams naked...here is your opportunity...but you need to seek help). The film contains plenty of objectionable material. There is also some drug use and questionable language. The rating of R by the MPAA was well applied. I would be embarrassed to see this film in mixed company. I would suggest a minimal mid-teen audience for this one...but would really suggest avoiding it altogether.

World's Greatest Dad took an intriguing concept and tortured it. The flat characters, cliche and weak dialogue left the actors with little to work with. Even a box office master like Robin Williams fails to shine in this weakly developed, contrived film. If they were to rework this film with characters that had dimension and maybe changed the ending it might reach the level of moderate recommendation. As it stands, my recommendation is to avoid this stinker. 4/10.

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