World's Greatest Dad

This movie worked very well as a dark comedy. It followed no set boundaries and goes its own way. The results are incredibly dark, sometimes being almost twisted. There are some scenes where the viewer doesn't know whether to laugh or feel sad. Robin Williams delivers his best performance in a while as Lance Clayton, a struggling writer striving for success and hell-bent on not dying alone. I personally found it rather impressive that it was both written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait because I'm personally not too big of a fan of his stand-up and this was a far departure from it. However, the one thing that I saw as holding the movie back was its climax, which I believed took the right route, but could have been more powerful or had a bit more of a sting to it. Overall, this movie, like Observe and Report released earlier in 2009, won't be for everyone, but it works very well in its own way.

I don't understand how this can be called a comedy. This is a depressing movie with a depressing begining, a depressing middle and a depressing ending.

This movie is a portrait of a pathetic loser, who fails at his passion, at raising his son and at the only good thing in his life, the relationship to his beautiful teacher collegue. There is no irony, no playfulness, no dark humor, just misery. It's about as funny as watching a car crash. How this is supposed to be funny? I don't know.

As a drama it works pretty well though. If it would have been advertised as that, i might have liked it. The saving grace for me was the great performances, especially the always amazing Robin Williams.

World's Greatest Dad (2009)

*** (out of 4)

One of the blackest of all black comedies features Robin Williams as Lance, a failed teacher, failed boyfriend and failed father to an obnoxious pervert (Daryl Sabara) who masturbates too much, is hated by everyone and who has no real purpose in life. After a tragedy and a lie the father must then come to terms with something that I won't ruin here. When people think of Goldthwait, 99% of them are going to think of the crazy guy from the POLICE ACADEMY films and only 1% are going to know him as a filmmaker. SHAKES THE CLOWN has gained a cult following over the years and there's no doubt that this film will eventually be looked at as not a great movie but one that after watching you'll want to stand up and applaud the filmmakers for delivering something completely original and different. It's hard to really describe this movie because it's best that you go into it without knowing all of the details and how we get to the events in the second half. I'm sure you could show this movie to a hundred people and each one of them would walk away feeling the movie was about something different. I think the film certainly shines the spotlight on parenthood, teen suicide and how we worship celebs and how those celebs even become famous. The movie has so many layers that people are going to take different things away from it but I really respected the comedy of the first half and then the drama of the second. The first half of the movie is full of vulgar situations as the loser son offends one person after another and the viewer can't help but hate him. There's never an attempt to make us like him and that's usually not a good thing in a comedy if you hate the leading man. We're not even given a reason to like the father played by Williams, although I'm sure one could feel sorry for him because of how big of a loser he is to everyone around him. If you do find yourself caring for him then that might change after the events in the second half of the movie. Everyone was informed about Williams and his full frontal nudity but more people should really look at his terrific performance. I guess raw might be a simple word but the entire Williams persona is cleaned away and we're seeing a performance from him that we haven't seen before. I've always felt that he was a better dramatic actor than a comedic one but he handles both sides extremely well here. Sabara is just as great as the perverted son and Alexie Gilmore is wonderful as Williams' girlfriend. The film hits on all sorts of rather taboo subjects but for the most part is looks them directly in the face and doesn't back down. I'm sure the subject matter might be too much for certain film fans but I think those looking for a rather brave and original piece of film-making is going to at least respect what we get here even if they find themselves feeling uncomfortable.

Normally you review a film by comparing it to something.

There's nothing like this. Dealing with highly uncomfortable and totally understandable scenarios, while occasionally managing to be outright hilarious while never letting go of the central theme of how we see ourselves in our deceased.

Not for everyone, but if you get it....

I loved the characterisation of this movie: Robin Williams is one of those actors you have to like. So when, as in this movie, he plays someone who is sweet and kind and weak and crawling through moral quicksand, the resulting conflict you feel has you laughing out loud and wringing your hands with anxiety all at the same time.

The plot is original and comes with a couple of unforgettable twists. The dialogue is sharp, the humour dark. The moral compass is spinning wildly, but it straightens up for us in the end.

There is a quote at the end of the movie that really struck a chord with me.

"I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone, but it's not. The worst thing is ending up with people who make you feel all alone."

Brilliant.