Review of Father's Day (2003) by Robert H — 12 Sep 2014

FATHER'S DAY, starring Robin Williams and Billy Crystal, is fairly middling as comedies go. Still, the chemistry between Williams and Crystal is very good and both deliver a number of laughs with their own brands of comedy.

Billy Crystal is the straight-laced, sarcastic type while Robin Williams is a high-strung, emotional wreck with a penchant for improvisation. The premise of the movie is that a woman (Nastassja Kinski) calls and tells each of them that they're the father of her 16-year-old son who just ran away.

Then they go on the road in search of him and hijinks ensue. While the concept is rather far-fetched, if you throw plausibility out the window this movie can be enjoyable. Both of the leads get to revel in their schticks for what is essentially a paycheck gig, but it still looked like they had fun working with each other.

The acting across the board is ok, but this type of movie doesn't really require too much anyway. The most important facet is the humor, and for the most part this movie does fine. A lot of the gags were lowbrow and borderline tasteless, but for what it's worth I laughed.

That being said, there is one gag involving a porto-potty that was drawn out a little too long. On the negative side, there was a couple of things that disturbed me a little bit, considering Robin Williams recent death, namely, a couple of suicide jokes.

When an actor plays a role, certain elements of their real life inevitably make it into the character, and there were some interesting comparisons one could make between Robin's character in this movie and his personality in real life.

What really shocked me, however, was his introductory scene which shows him about to blow his brains out with a pistol. On the lighter side, there was a completely out-of-the-blue cameo in the last act that really threw me for a loop.

Generally speaking, this is yet another one of Robin Williams' lesser comedies. It takes a ridiculous concept, stretches it a little too thin and piles on lowbrow gags, but it was still pretty funny in spite of itself.