 Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003) What makes it palatable, though, is the surprising warmth it's all wrapped up in. Spade is enough of a bona fide celeb himself that he must be attuned to the fleeting gifts (and Indian gifts) that accompany fame, so watching Dickie Roberts, you get a stinging portrait of faded Hollywood stardom that somehow comes across as loving. It's not a great movie, by any means. The script is pat and predictable, full of half-assed ideas and jokes that reflect absolutely zero effort on the part of the writers to break any new ground. And it seems as though the film was retooled a lot in editing, as a pseduo-documentary framework that opens the film is quickly abandoned in favor of Joe Dirt-style antics. What could have been a scathing, dark, and gutsy movie ends up squarely in the "family entertainment" zone. Spade is Dickie Roberts, a Ricky Schroeder/Danny Partridge type who starred on a fictional 70s sitcom and gained fame with the catchphrase "This is nucking futs!" That detail made me laugh, as did many of the set pieces revolving around real former child stars, though I was left wishing they had tried a little harder with the whole thing. The plot concerns comeback-obsessed Dickie, now a valet, fixating on a longshot part in a Rob Reiner film as the big break that will rocket him back into the limelight. When he's told that his own lack of normal childhood memories rule him out as a candidate for the part, he hires a family to help him acquire a childhood experience that will inform his approach to the role. The family initially has nothing but contempt for Dickie, but after awhile, he begins to teach them as much as they teach him, and it's all warm and fuzzy. The one-dimensional characters serve mainly to allow for Dickie to behave "hilariously" amid a conventinoal family setting. It ultimately works, with the delicious Mary McCormack providing almost all of the needed emotional grounding. Ultimately, it's no doubt a trifle, but it's completely watchable and heart-tugging in all the right places. The scenes involving real-life former celebrities are funny, though I must admit I was a bit distressed to see this kind of humor enter the mainstream in such an easy-target way. The film opens with Dickie being brutally beaten by Emanuel Lewis in "Celebrity Boxing," and a subsequent scene involving Dickie playing poker with Leif Garrett, Dustin Diamond, Danny Bonaduce, Corey Feldman, and Barry Williams was funny but tossed off. I'd rather have seen them develop this concept further instead of knocking it out for easy laughs (i.e. Barry Williams resorting to ante-ing up with "Brady Bunch" memorablia). It's has-been comedy as broad as the multiplex wants it, but for me, this kind of thing was funny like 15 years ago. Jon Lovitz is great as Dickie's pathetic agent who, at one point, agrees to donate one of his kidneys to Rob Reiner to secure Dickie an audition. Alyssa Milano is tasty but unnecessary as Dickie's conniving ex-girlfriend. The credits roll with a "We Are the World"-type video featuring former stars lamenting their lives. On a conceptual level, I greatly admire anyone getting Ernest Thomas, Haywood Nelson, Eddie Mekka, Jeff Conaway, Fred "Rerun" Berry, Maureen McCormick, Marion Ross, Erin Moran, Corey Haim, and a few others into a room together to sing such a song, though I did feel like it could have been done with some subtelty. Maybe I'm just jealous, seeing as it rubbed up against my own former-star status (I was on the short-lived spinoff of "Check it Out" called "Paper or Plastic" from '89-'90). I guess what I need is therapy, not comedy.
Review by La Fée |