World's Greatest Dad

Written & Directed by: Bobcat Goldwaith

Starring: Robin Williams, Alexie Gilmore, Daryl Sabara, Evan Martin, Henry Simmons, Geoffrey Pierson

Rated R for language, crude and sexual content, some drug use and disturbing images.

Whenever I go to see a movie at the River Oaks (Landmark) Theater, we see a commercial for HDNet movies. And it?s like ?watch them at home before they?re out in theaters? because somehow or another they get rights to show some movies (Indies) before they?re released wide. Well I never had HDNet till recently, and one Saturday after getting suckered into watching Big Fish yet again, I see this great preview for a Robin William?s movie called World?s Greatest Dad. So I set the DVR to record it cause this looked like something I?d want to see in the theaters, so hell yeah I wanna see it at home for free.

Lance Clayton (Williams) is pretty much a loser. He?s divorced. Is a high school English teacher whose favorite class to teach has the lowest attendance possible. He loves crappy music. And has been denied publishing for everything he has ever submitted. His son Kyle (Sabara) is obsessed with fetish porn, has no friends at school save for Andrew (Simmons), hates his father, and is pretty much a dick.

The bright spot in Lance?s life is his girlfriend and co-worker Claire (Gilmore). She?s smart, attractive, and way out of his league. He gets visibly jealous when the more popular English teacher Mike (Simmons) flirts with Claire, especially after she congratulates Mike for being published in The New Yorker after his first submission.

But despite all the crap in his life, Lance still tries. Tries to be a good man for his girlfriend. Tries to incite poetry in his students. And most of all, he tries to get his son to love him.

Suddenly, a tragedy strikes Lance?s small family and while trying to cope with his grief and loss, he uses the situation to greatly benefit himself.

I got the movie. It was darkly, darkly humorous. And I?m usually a fan of such films, but I just did not like it. I even thought it was a timely theme about how once tragedy happens then everyone wants to be a part of it to make themselves feel?however we feel when we want to be a part of something. Like when Michael Jackson died and everyone had Michael Jackson tshirts and bought all the cds and went to the funeral like they really knew him and were die-hard fans since ?ABC?.

Robin Williams truly is a great actor. And for some reason he?s really good at creepy, oddball roles (see: The Final Cut, One Hour Photo, Death to Smoochy). And I don?t recall seeing Daryl Sabara in anything else, but man that kid is a good actor because I wanted to jump through the screen and beat his ass for how he talked to his father. And beat the dad?s ass for letting him. The supporting cast was ok. No stand out performances for me.

I just did not like it. I didn?t care one way or the other what happened to these people cause they were all so horrible or self absorbed or so pitiful that I just wanted the movie to be over. Then I get online to check out what other people thought and they LOVED it. I had to make sure I was reading about the same movie. It?s a decent premise for a story. And the acting was good, there was just?some missing magic for me. When I finally hit ?stop? on the remote, I promptly hit the ?delete? key and was all too thankful that I saved myself $7. D.