About My Father

It’s an oddball movie that had me laughing out loud, perhaps not for reasons the filmmakers intended, but I enjoyed it anyway.

We should not feel that the actors had more fun than the audience. Wait for streaming.

A much less funny Meet the Parents meets a much less engaging My Big Fat Greek Wedding, with a dash of low-rent Wedding Crashers thrown in.

By the movie’s end, the real joke is how far it takes smiling white obliviousness...

De Niro, bless his heart, gives the movie more than it gives him.

Mr. De Niro seems largely to have run out of ideas as an actor, and as he has in many previous would-be funny performances he harrumphs his way through each scene employing a range of expressions running from frowns to scowls.

The movie works hard to get all the pieces in place for big comedy set-pieces and the excellent cast is all given moments to shine but it suffers from one unsurmountable problem; It’s simply not funny.

The best thing by far is De Niro and his zinger of a screwball-comedy performance.

Just like how it happens here, even Hollywood doesn’t mind revisiting mundane tropes only to have some fun. The film may not be original and refreshing, but Robert De Niro is as he calls himself in the film. He’s the father of all, as the title says.

Unfunny comedy.