A movie armed with such a strong cast of comedians, you almost expect a movie like this to be open scripted hilarity. Sure there'd be a script, but the comedians are given free reign to riff on the situations to try to make them comedic, and to make them their own. You'd have some semblance of a hurried background story in order to get to the dinner section where all hell breaks loose and biting hilarity ensues.
This is not that movie.
That movie would have been amazing with this cast.
This movie is a strictly scripted dysfunctional family Indie comedy that is more dramatic than comedic. Which could be OK, if the characters were well drawn instead of being broad stereotypes put into clichéd situations. The screw-up, the good kid, the princess, the absent father, the ignored mother, and the successful kid who puts it all to paper. This is every crappy family movie crossed with Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry...minus the snark, bite, or reason. The father's speech at the end telling everybody that they are responsible for their own misery is the only change from this formula.
The movie is hollow. And, maybe that's the point. Maybe the writer is bitter about all the other family dysfunction films that send the blame up the chain. And, so he made a film that was as hollow as he felt the other movies to be, with the father being the writer's voice saying "you guys are your own problems." But, if this IS the case, this sort of po-mo response doesn't make it a good movie...or, for that matter, an entertaining one.
That's not to say this movie is completely terrible. It does have fleeting flashes of actual humor, mainly involving Leslie Ann Warren as the ignored mother and Taraji P. Henson as the screw-up's doting girlfriend, both of whom are criminally underused. But, as I said, they're fleeting flashes of humor with the rest of the film's humor being empty.
Skip it.
2/10
This is not that movie.
That movie would have been amazing with this cast.
This movie is a strictly scripted dysfunctional family Indie comedy that is more dramatic than comedic. Which could be OK, if the characters were well drawn instead of being broad stereotypes put into clichéd situations. The screw-up, the good kid, the princess, the absent father, the ignored mother, and the successful kid who puts it all to paper. This is every crappy family movie crossed with Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry...minus the snark, bite, or reason. The father's speech at the end telling everybody that they are responsible for their own misery is the only change from this formula.
The movie is hollow. And, maybe that's the point. Maybe the writer is bitter about all the other family dysfunction films that send the blame up the chain. And, so he made a film that was as hollow as he felt the other movies to be, with the father being the writer's voice saying "you guys are your own problems." But, if this IS the case, this sort of po-mo response doesn't make it a good movie...or, for that matter, an entertaining one.
That's not to say this movie is completely terrible. It does have fleeting flashes of actual humor, mainly involving Leslie Ann Warren as the ignored mother and Taraji P. Henson as the screw-up's doting girlfriend, both of whom are criminally underused. But, as I said, they're fleeting flashes of humor with the rest of the film's humor being empty.
Skip it.
2/10
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