If you make it until the final credits of David Spade's new comedy Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, you'll be rewarded with a scene of such humor and heart you might swear the preceding film had more going for it than it did. The scene has nothing really to do with the narrative proper. It's basically a compendium of our favorite former child stars of yesterday - about thirty of them - in a recording session of an original song that allows them to poke gentle fun at themselves while celebrating who they are today. It's a great movie moment, and one of the few in an otherwise formulaic and routine movie, enlivened by a couple of decent comic moments and some nice work from Spade and co-star Mary McCormack.
Way back in the `70s, five-year-old Dickie Roberts was at the top of his game, headlining the hit TV series "The Glimmer Gang" and coining the phrase "nucking futs." When age six arrived, his show was cancelled and little Dickie, the product of a desperate, flamboyant stage mother (Doris Roberts), hit the skids, unable to duplicate his popularity or success.
Flash forward to the present day, and thirty-five-year-old Dickie (Spade) is a valet at Morton's - how much more outside the industry could he be - when he gets wind of a hot new role in Rob Reiner's new film that he's sure will put him back on the map. After his manic agent (an overplaying Jon Lovitz) gets him an audition, Reiner (as himself) determines that though Dickie is apparently supremely talented (yeah, right), he missed out on a normal childhood and therefore won't be believable in the role.
Vowing to get the normal childhood and the role, Dickie enlists the help of a cash-strapped family to take him in and let him live as one of their children until he absorbs some kind of "normal" childhood and is ready to audition again for Reiner. The family includes stressed out George Finney (Craig Bierko), wife Grace (radiant Mary McCormack) and typical precocious movie-kids kids Sam (Scott Terra) and Sally (Jenna Boyd). As he settles down into this family, the amusing satire established up to this point undoes itself in favor of a traditional and obvious culture shock comedy for both Dickie and the Finneys.
In the film's best scene, a group of ex-child-star buddies sits around playing cards and crying in their beer about the superstar status of today's leading male cinema icons, from Brad Pitt to Vin Diesel ("What's the big deal?"). That the participants happen to be Barry Williams, Leif Garrett, Danny Bonaduce, Corey Feldman and Dustin Diamond is just about perfect. And Williams' reminiscing about the Brady Hawaii episode by revealing the dreaded "tiki" as ante material is a hoot. The scene, for a conventional comedy, has more than a ring of inspiration and lunacy, and it makes you wish the rest of the film were played at that freewheeling, self-effacing level.
And there's another more contemporary bit of comedy that hits the bulls-eye late in the film. When Dickie takes Sally to her elementary cheerleading tryout, a bold competitor - one of those too-sensual-for-her-years pre-teens -- turns on the sex appeal while gyrating to a Britney Spears tune, writhing about with pom-poms and abandon that would seem daring on a girl twice her age. It's a terrific comic moment and one that leaves the judging committee dumbfounded and the audience tickled.
But Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, for all the comic potential in its premise, settles down comfortably into disappointing, connect the emotional dots formula. The conventionality and obviousness of the living arrangements set in. Dickie joins the family after reluctant hesitation on mom's part, the kids accept and begin to love him, and in the end, he discovers the movie cliché that money and fame are nothing without family. The film gets bogged down in uncomfortable pathos that often plays (intended or not) like forced, smirking sentimentality. Of course it goes without saying that by the time the film reaches its conclusion, everyone in the house will come around, undergo a change and harmoniously fall for each other, a "real" family will be created, people will come to terms and bonds will be formed.
If only the film had remained a Hollywood satire and stuck with the rowdy fun of the set-up, it might have been an almost good take on what it means to rise, fall and be kicked while you're down in an industry with a long-term memory and short-term success rate.
By the same token, the late scenes in the film between Spade and the talented, underused McCormack have a certain sweetness and near-depth that's undeniable. Both actors do well together and have decent chemistry in these subtle moments, but the scenes themselves seem almost unwieldy when contrasted with the broad physical humor and slapstick comedy of Dickie's overgrown, fish-out-of-water hi-jinks that drive the rest of this film.
It's too bad, really, because Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star really had potential for a sweet-tempered satire with its reformed child star makes good theme. But the comedy here, instead of exploring the industry pitfalls promised in the premise, turns into the usual shtick associated with anything that's got Adam Sandler's hands on it (he co-produced this one), and Spade, a likeable presence who more than hints at his ability (and possibly desire) to play a few deeper notes, pretty much goes along for the ride with his sweet daffiness in check and perfectly at home in the sitcom-stylings of the script.
Spade is always likeable, even though we're fully aware we're watching a pretty sad vehicle built around a talented performer who desperately needs to flex his acting muscles. Spade, who once said he could do several variations on the same note, seems capable of more human comedy than Dickie Roberts, and here's to his chance to not so much break out of his box, but step outside with a grace akin to Adam Sandler in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love.
Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star isn't quite a bad film, but it's not a good one either. For the most part, it's bogged down in formula and convention when it needs to be incisive and telling. The few rich comic scenes are isolated pleasures in a well-intentioned film that ends up a bland trip with flashes of rowdy inspiration.
David Spade has more than this in him, and one day I hope we get a chance to see it.
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|