After a few Oscar contenders we went for a silly comedy a week ago. It has plenty of laughs, as a serious middle-class dad tries to accept his daughter's crazy boyfriend, a dot-com billionaire ten years her senior. Bryan Cranston (last blogged in The Infiltrator) never disappoints as Ned, the father, mostly a straight man to the many gags. James Franco (he has made 24 movies (not counting TV) and has 18 in progress since Third Person) is over the top as the boyfriend Laird. Good choice casting Megan Mullaly (after I wrote about her in Smashed she made a few movies and a lot more TV, including a series arc on Parks and Recreation and co-starring in You, Me and the Apocalypse as a white supremacist convict) as the mom. Zoey Deutch (the daughter of Lea Thompson and Howard Deutch, she is no stranger to show biz, but I haven't seen her in anything) is cute as daughter Stephanie. I was tickled to see Keegan-Michael Key (last in Don't Think Twice) in more than a cameo as Laird's German personal assistant Gustav.
John Hamburg (co-wrote Little Fockers and directed/co-wrote I Love You, Man) directs from a script by him and Ian Helfer (new to me) with story credited to both of them plus Jonah Hill (his first story or writing credit in these pages).
Rotten Tomatoes' critics average 40% and its audiences 63. Definitely not a must-see for anyone but the most devoted Franco (or Hill) fans, but if you happen to catch it for free sometime you might laugh.
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