In 1988, Robert DeNiro did his first real comedy Midnight Run. There was something funny about the way he threatened on a phone to brutally murder Charles Grodin’s character who was standing shocked right next to him and then just give a dismissive shake of the head. It was all in the delivery. DeNiro and Grodin were a surprise pairing that work.
Then, about a decade later, he made Analyze This, in which he was a mob boss who suffers panic attacks and seeks out the help of psychiatrist played by Billy Crystal. The movie worked because of the dynamic between the two and it helped that Harold Ramis was the director and co-wrote it with Kenneth Lonergan and Peter Tolan. Then, he made Meet the Parents which also worked because of the way it was designed. Seeing DeNiro and his pet cat, Mr. Jinx, was one of the movie’s highlights. DeNiro seemed to encompass the WASP suburban Baby Boomer archetype and turn it on its side as a retired CIA operative.
But over the last 20 years or so since Parents, he made some not-so-great comedies, including the sequels to Parents and Analyze. I laughed some at the broad low-brow humor of Dirty Grandpa and it had some great moments and was a box office success. But his career since the 2000s has mostly hit the skids with him mostly accepting whatever role he’s offered like his What Just Happened co-star Bruce Willis. It was revealed in 2021 that he had to make these movies has he was going through a divorce with his ex-wife Stella Hightower.
Earlier this year, he welcomed a new baby to his legacy and his production company has been found liable and ordered to pay an ex-assistant $1.2 million in a civil case. So, it’s only natural that as DeNiro, who recently turned 80, needs to do as much work as possible. He even appeared in a “geezer teaser” for controversial filmmaker Randall Emmett, who also produced those movies Willis churned out.
A movie like About My Father attempts to be a cross between My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Meet the Fockers, only this time DeNiro plays the eccentric parent rather than the WASP conservative parent. Co-written by Sebastian Maniscalo who also stars as himself, it’s about how he was raised by his Italian immigrant father, Salvo (DeNiro) who is a successful hair stylist with a boutique. (The images of a ponytailed DeNiro as a hair stylist during a flashback scene in the 1970s is one of the funniest moments in a mostly unfunny movie.)
Sebastian meets and falls in love with Ellie (Leslie Bibb) who introduces him to new things in adulthood that he’s not aware of because of his Italian upbringing, like taking naps during the day. Eventually, Sebastian and Ellie get serious and you guessed right thinking he is going to propose to her. And that’s where Salvo comes in as he wants to use a family ring to propose to Ellie on the upcoming July 4 weekend which he gets Salvo to accompany him to Ellie’s family homestead.
Apparently, Ellie’s mother, Tigger (Kim Cantrall looking like she regrets not appearing in And Just Like That…) is a U.S. Senator and the rest of the family seems like a carbon copy of the Bluth Family from Arrested Development and just about every other “satire” or “parody” of WASP upper-class families. Aside from Ellie and Tigger who is given a bad hair-style by Salvo, the rest of the family is so one-dimensional they never stick out.
There’s a lot of misadventures including the death of the family’s pet peacock, which isn’t as funny as Maniscalo thought it was on paper. Basically, the whole thing with the peacock is dumb as well. I’m only reminded of the turkey that Patrick Dempsey had in With Honors that suffered the same fate. It also makes Salvo less of a likable character and more of a caricature, even though seeing DeNiro appear as a gift for the Christmas photo is another good laugh. But just as Al Pacino appearing in Jack and Jill, when the funniest parts of a movie are an actor’s lowest moments, you know you’re in for a bad movie.
Thankfully, DeNiro still manages to produce a good movie here and there. This isn’t one. If this had been rated R, then PG-13, there might have been some more savagery they could have worked with. But this feels too much like a sitcom. The good news is with rave reviews for his latest movie Killers of the Flower Moon, it’s easy to overlook this movie as nothing more than just a paycheck movie so he can make better movies.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 