World's Greatest Dad

THE FLICK
The title World's Greatest Dad is ironic in the context of Bobcat Goldthwait's family dramedy. Robin Williams plays Lance Clayton, a poetry teacher who can't seem to break through to his rude son Kyle (Daryl Sabara). Fighting in school, taking pictures up Lance's girlfriend's dress or watching an older neighbor undress, Kyle and Lance have an adversarial relationship, to say the least. When Kyle ends up accidentally strangling himself while masturbating, a desperate Lance cooks up a scheme to jump start his own flailing writing career: use the tragedy to make a name for himself. What he doesn't expect is the instant fame he gets.

Goldthwait crafted two very different films within World's Greatest Dad. The fist is a typical family drama, filled with the normal father/son relationship issues. It's a format audiences have seen on both the big and small screen for ages and tends to be devoid of any new content. That being said, by taking nearly 40 minutes to develop Lance and Kyle, the film allows for the day-to-day arguments which wear on Lance to also wear on the audience. We see it in scenes where Kyle harps on Lance, embarrasses him and ultimately gets his way. Notice how a trip to the movies turns into looking for a new computer which then morphs into Kyle getting a new monitor...one he comments isn't the biggest one available. Not a thank you, no recognition of how he twists his father around. It's these scenes which make us squirm. Not because we necessarily feel bad for Lance (anyone will say he needs to grow a backbone and stand up to Kyle), but because Goldthwait continually pummels us with them, transposing the audience with Lance. If the writer/director can successfully make us hate the kid, then maybe we can understand the reaction he elicits from people around him.

Key to this are the performances from Williams and Sabara. From the get go, Williams has a defeated attitude to everything he does, merely limping through life and allowing things to happen to him instead of taking charge. The actor maintains an even keel through the picture regardless of what happens, as if to signify he doesn't care. Sabara's performance is completely opposite that of Williams. Here is a young man who looks like he could be a good kid in one moment and turns into a devil the next. We buy his two personalities since Sabara doesn't provide a shred of warm humanity when he's on the screen. The gears are always turning in his head, so to speak, about how to cause pain.  There's a sweetness in him which comes through as quite filthy sentences and accusations come out of his mouth as well as when he's trying to profess his innocence.

Then there's the other film, the surreal one, the one that plays almost like a dream. It involves people putting on a show and making themselves feel better about their hatred of Kyle by praising him in death. Of course, the real world is littered with examples of this same thing, only World's Greatest Dad takes it up a notch or two into the realm of satire.  And this is where the film tends to go off the rails.  While it can be argued the second half is more of a dream in keeping with the aftermath of an accidental suicide, Goldthwait doesn't play it that way.  At least not completely.  Certain sequences are shown in slow motion, others feature characters in exaggerated poses or in heightened realities (Claire in Mike's arms in the finale is one such shot).  He wants to hammer home the comedy he sees in the situation which is a perfectly legitimate tack to take.  However, when a full 40 minutes or so are devoted to showing variations on the same theme over and over again, one has to wonder when enough is enough.  (This is different from watching Kyle mistreat Lance in the first half since that progresses the story along; one or two sequences of fellow students and faculty "mourning" Kyle would have been plenty.)

Speaking of Claire, she's the art teacher Lance is quasi-dating.  "Quasi" since she continually breaks dates him with at the last minute.  Actress Alexie Gilmore isn't the problem with the character; rather, the character herself is the issue.  We never believe she'd be interested in Lance in any sense of the word.  Is he simply deluding himself into thinking they're actually dating?  It's a possibility, considering the self-created world he lives in.  There's also another possibility: he's punishing himself for not being the titular World's Greatest Dad.  If Lance continues to pursue and get shot down, it feeds into his overall feeling of being a loser or not good enough.  Really, at the end of the film, it is one of Goldthwait's themes, the idea of not measuring up to a pre-determined level.  Lance fancies himself a writer, yet can't get a thing published.  He also believes the students who take his poetry class get something out of it, even though there's only a handful of them.  He sees Claire as his girl with no concrete evidence of it.  She does manage to roll with the punches during a dinner outing with Kyle, making the distinction between her reactions and Lance's all the more striking.  But what is her role here, except to be the romantic interest? 

(It should be mentioned Kyle's journal and suicide note-written by Lance-become big hits, causing him to see himself as someone who also uses his teenager to further his own agenda.)

The script doesn't much care about being funny or making the audience laugh.  Humor comes from the situations the characters find themselves in, organically, as part of the story.  Goldthwait mentions in the commentary he doesn't find punchline humor very funny since people don't talk like that in real life.  He's to be commended for having the gumption to stick to what he knows to be true instead of forcing words unnaturally onto his characters.  Because of this, though, there are no neon signs screaming "LAUGH" at the audience.  They're more subtle motions designed to cue the audience to the joke.  In an early lunchroom scene, Lance tries to see a magazine article being passed around the table from person to person.  Almost as if he isn't there, fellow teachers take the article from his hands.  This is the kind of humor inherent in the film, completely devoid of conventional comedy.

THE LOOK
The anamorphic widescreen transfer looks old, for lack of a better word.  There's nothing wrong with it in the usual terms, outside of some brief shimmer in a fence.  "Old" refers to a dirty, almost grimy appearance over all the scenes, including grain, which gives the finished product a sense of realism, of "down and dirtiness."  Colors are generally well represented, though the palette is more or less conservative without anything to truly stand out.  The sky in outdoor scenes seems a bit blown out...glowing, if you will...though that is most likely also by design.  Blacks comes across nicely, even if they aren't asked to do a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.  I did find a some haloing in the picture, particularly around objects framed against a dark background.  Not a major problem for a transfer with a fair amount of picture detail and not many other issues.

THE SOUND
World's Greatest Dad includes both English 5.1 and 2.0 audio tracks.  It should be noted neither has anything technically wrong-no hissing, no drop outs, no distortion.  Dialogue is clear throughout and does not have to compete with the song-heavy soundtrack for attention.  The rear speakers don't get a ton of work to do, seeing as this is a dialogue-heavy film and the spoken word stays squarely in the front speakers.  There are no subtitles.

THE STUFF
World's Greatest Dad comes packed in a standard black keepcase without an insert. Trailers for The Burning Plain, Outrage, Ong Bak 2, Bronson and HDNet play at startup; they're also available from the Special Features menu. The feature is broken down into 12 chapters.

Goldthwait provides an entertaining and refreshingly candid commentary. At the outset, he mentions being on pain pills for a back injury and attributes his comments to the meds. For instance, Goldthwait mentions he has no interest in making a comedy for teenagers, which is why World's Greatest Dad pulls no punches and, presumably, got an R rating. He even goes so far as to tell the teens to "get lost" with more colorful language. Earlier, he rails against fancy camera moves, noting how he barely moves the camera to provide a more natural look to the film. And then there's his little diatribe about regarding the way the public elevates a person in the wake of a tragedy, referencing Michael Jackson.

After the commentary, the rest of the extras seem more than a bit redundant. Five deleted scenes (both individual and Play All options) don't add anything to the overall story. Four outtakes (also individual and Play All options) feature the cast missing cues or flubbing lines or, in other words, the norm. "Behind the Scenes: WWBCD?" (18:36) is a featurette which asks seemingly every cast and crew member what the film is about while interspersing film clips and behind the scene footage. There's nothing revolutionary in the piece and comes off a bit extraneous.

"HDNet: A Look at World's Greatest Dad" (4:43) is a fluffy promo piece run on the HDNet channel. Finally, a music video for "I Hope I Become a Ghost" by The Deadly Syndrome (4:13) is included.