The Headhunter's Calling

Suffers from sentimental overload and a tidal wave of conscience-searching clichs.

Not great, not terrible, mostly bearable, occasionally insufferable; you might watch it all the way through if you were tucked into a blanket on a couch and weren't so thirsty, hungry or in need of a bathroom break that you felt compelled to get up.

Alternately crass and treacly, overbearing and under-finessed, the film ... is on life support from get-go.

A loathsome redemption tale that rings false on every front.

The whole thing reeks of a vanity project for Butler (who also produced), affording him the chance to showboat as a Gordon Gekko type trying to redeem himself.

Never rises above polished plastic, formulaic, and pedestrian.

...an often painfully conventional concoction that does, for the most part, fare reasonably well...

A Family Man isn't good, but it's far better than its lazy foundations and cheap motivations deserve.

A Family Man is enjoyable at times but falls into the preconceived pitfalls that so many similar films have.

The boy's suffering certainly serves the classic disabled-person-as-inspiration function for his father, whilst the boy himself gains nothing except, perhaps, a soupon more attention.