CineVegas Review: ‘Worlds Greatest Dad’

It’s really not fair to analyze and write up a film like Bobcat Goldthwait’s latest endeavor into writing and directing, ‘World’s Greatest Dad,’ just after having done the same for ‘Year One.’ ‘Year One’ took no chances, flinging dung at its audience and walking away snickering like the annoying juvenile it represented.

‘World’s Greatest Dad’ is a film all about risk, and Bobcat shows no shame in the dark and twisted way he unveils his characters. How some of those characters react to the world and what occurs to them is as black and as divisive as a comedy can get. Yet, Goldthwait barrels through, never once apologizing to his audience for the audacity his film holds onto. In the end, it all works towards the film’s ultimate success. Goldthwait has created a grand achievement.

The tale of a father and his son, ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ stars Robin Williams as Lance Clayton, a high school poetry teacher who dreams of himself as a writer of great literature. He loves his work, even if his students don’t understand all that he understands. He has a successful relationship with a fellow teacher, played by Alexie Gilmore.

Of course, there is a hitch in Lance’s life. He has a sixteen-year-old son, played by ‘Spy Kids’ Daryl Sabara. Kyle is vulgar, hateful, and probably candidate for the worst son that doesn’t have 666 tattooed on his scalp.

However, for all of his sons cruelties, Lance cannot bring himself to hate his son. He loves Kyle, and he can’t bear the thought of anyone thinking less of his own child.

This is where the turning point occurs in ‘World’s Greatest Dad.’ For the first hour, we see Lance trying to make it through his days, trying to reach his students, trying to earn the respect of his peers, trying to help his son in any way possible. Kyle has nothing to do with it, and Lance’s efforts typically result in name-calling and hatred. It is a rather tedious first half, one that works mainly due to the spectacular performances by Williams and Sabara, but we’ll get to that momentarily.

It is with the catalyst that sparks the events of the second half that ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ goes from being a film about a son’s hatred to a film about a father’s love. Oddly enough, with that love brings the darker elements to Goldthwait’s screenplay. The more left unsaid about what happens to Lance and Kyle the better, but one, very precise event causes an avalanche of events that effects how Lance sees the world and how the world sees Kyle.

Goldthwait’s film is divisive before the turning point. Some might be turned off by Kyle’s endless barrage of insults and vulgarities. It can easily be viewed that Goldthwait spends too much time getting to the event that leads the audience into the second half of ‘World Greatest Dad.’ On the contrary, this time is needed to help set the characters in place and build the relationships between them. By the turning point, we hate Kyle, and we really begin to question Lance’s sanity, as he continues to try to reach his son. Just after the clincher, we feels sympathy, and, then, later, with Lance’s actions regarding the event, we begin to feel discomfort for our feelings for this character.

All the while, jumping between these different emotions, the one, overriding factor of all is that ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ is a very funny film. Goldthwait is an ace when it comes to extracting comedy out of such black subject matter. He does so with seemingly minimal effort. As uncomfortable as ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ gets, as much as you might squirm in your seat watching the events that transpire, you are never left without some form of joviality to help lead you through darkness.

Much of that sense of levity comes from Robin Williams, who gives his best performance in years here. We all know Williams knows comedy, and he’s proven over the course of the past, few decades that he’s a marksman when it comes to drama, as well. With ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ he finds solace somewhere in between, able to ride the line between one and the other while still, at times, able to dive in head-first into one pool or the other. He balances the light and the dark with his character with absolute certainty, and, now that I think about it, he may give his best performance of all time with this film.

Sabara is unrelenting. He is basically playing the same character he played at the beginning of Rob Zombie’s ‘Halloween,’ the type of kid who snags the hat off a passing classmate just because it is there. He really brings the hatred out of the audience, and, by the time the film changes directions, you are ready to literally throw something at the kid.

‘World’s Greatest Dad’ is a comedy as dark in nature and as light in character as you might find. There are definitely darker films out there. ‘Very Bad Things’ and ‘Heathers’ comes right to mind. Yet, there is a sense of hope in ‘World’s Greatest Dad,’ hope for the characters involved and hope for brighter days ahead for them. Sick and twisted as it might be, ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ actually makes you feel better by the end of it, something that is difficult for any film, light or dark, to do.