REVIEW: World's Greatest Dad

By Philip Martin

LITTLE ROCK — World's Greatest Dad is a subversive sucker punch from the squirming, dark and probably un-American mind of Bobcat Goldthwait.

While it's exactly the sort of thing we might have expected from the writerdirector responsible for the tale of the alcoholic Shakes the Clown (1992) and the seriously warped girl and her dog story Stay (2006), from the title, the promotional graphics and the above-the-title presence of Robin Williams, you might expect World's Greatest Dad to be something along the lines of a Disney family movie - perhaps a remake of a forgotten (or subliminated) Dean Jones classic or the Bob Crane comedy Superdad.

In fact, World's Greatest Dad is a snarling black joke about a seemingly good man Lance (Williams) who just happens to have sired Kyle, a disgusting, flat-affected teenage sex maniac (Daryl Sabara) whom he happens to love in spite of his nearly complete lack of human attributes.

When Kyle dies in a freak accident, Lance - an aspiring novelist - recasts the sordid truth to portray the spectacularly unsympathetic Kyle as a victim, in the process igniting a viral campaign that results in an Internet Kyle cult. (Yes, it bears a certain resemblance to the serious-as-a-tax-audit Atom Egoyan film Adoration.)

Despite faltering in the third act (one doubts Goldthwait could have made the movie without at least these concessions to the sensibilities of "normals"), World's Greatest Dad is bravely acted (especially by Williams, who's much better in roles like these than when he's called on to be "funny") and invigoratingly dark.

World's Greatest Dad88Cast: Robin Williams, Daryl Sabara, AlexieGilmore Director: Bobcat Goldthwait Rating: R for language, crude and sexual content, drug use Running time: 99 minutes

MovieStyle, Pages 38 on 10/02/2009

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