World’s Greatest Dad
Jan 29th, 2010 by craig
One of my favorite holiday movies is “Scrooged,” Bill Murray’s take on the classic story of Scrooge. Those of you who’ve seen “Scrooged” will undoubtedly remember one of my favorite characters, Eliot Loudermilk, the employee that gets fired for telling Bill Murray that his offensive ad campaign really does suck. Eliot is played by Bobcat Goldthwait. Those of us of an older generation will remember Bobcat as a very, very offbeat stand up comedian.
Bobcat has moved from stand up and acting to directing, perhaps most notably on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” where he’s directed over 250 episodes. He’s also directed some other television shows and a couple of his own movies, which I haven’t seen. However, his most recent project, one that he both wrote and directed, “World’s Greatest Dad,” I recently watched vie Netflix. This is a great movie.
The first few scenes of “World’s Greatest Dad” are pretty uncomfortable and a little difficult to watch. The story is of a single father, Lance Clayton (Robin Williams) and his teenage son. Lance is a high school poetry teacher, the son an insufferable jackass. Really. The son treats his father, and his own friends (or friend), about as bad as they could be treated. The uncomfortable scenes culminate about a third of the way in with a dreadful tragedy, in a scene masterfully acted by Robin Williams.
From that point in the movie you find yourself not knowing whether you should laugh or cry. I think I laughed more. The story moves to Lance’s decisions and life after the tragedy and his eventual catharsis and epiphany which I think is so well captured in one of the narrated lines near the end of the movie: “I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is ending up with people who make you feel all alone.”
I would rank this movie at least as good, and possibly better (I’ll decide after I watch it a second time) than “American Beauty,” which it reminds me of. If you like those types of off-beat things, you’ll like “World’s Greatest Dad.”
This is an adult movie! Not for kids! In fact, I heard Bobcat himself say that he has no interest at all in entertaining kids or teens. His audience is a mature audience. So, to all you mature audiences out there, enjoy this film.