Movie Review: About My Father

 

Michael's Movie Grade: D

A formulaic and forgettable comedy. 

This movie is heavily based on Sebastian Maniscalco's (who stars in and co-wrote this movie) stand-up comedy, where he spends quite a bit of time talking about his father and the relationship between the two. Because of this Maniscalco, essentially plays himself, even using his own name. He does this with a great deal of charm and he has great chemistry with Robert DeNiro (who plays his father). I admit to not being familiar with his standup routine, as I don't really listen to much standup comedy, but while I can see some of the charm of this as a standup routine, it doesn't really work as a movie. The main problem is that what might be funny in standup is not necessarily funny in a fictionalized movie. Because of this much of the humor falls very flat. Much of this is due to the fact that the humor simply relies on the working-class father not fitting into the high-class world he finds himself in when visiting the son's girlfriend's family. This type of thing is automatically funny in standup comedy but in a film it is simply the setup to a gag. When the only gags here are very tired and cliché jokes that weren't even that funny, the comedy simply falls flat. The other major contributor to the comedy is that the girlfriend's family is very eccentric. However again this feels like more of a setup for a joke than an actual joke itself. There were a couple jokes that made me smile but I rarely actually laughed which is a major problem for a film like this. The story here is also a mess. It is about as cliché and familiar as it gets and there is no time when you do not know how it will end. This is not helped by the storyline become repetitive as it repeats its own emotional beats over again. Its heart seems to be in the right place but the story still doesn't work. 

Alas for good intentions, this just isn't a good movie.