By Richard Roeper
Movie Review
Why Him?
Directed by John Hamburg
TRUSTY MOVIEGOERS: Please allow me to SPOILER ALERT just one scene from the multivehicle car wreck that is Why Him? so you can see where I鈥檓 coming from when I tell you this is in the bottom 1% of movies I鈥檝e ever seen.
Ready?
Bryan Cranston鈥檚 Ned Fleming is skulking about the home office of James Franco鈥檚 Laird Mayhew, an obnoxious Silicon Valley multimillionaire romancing his precious daughter, Stephanie (Zoey Deutch), who has dropped out of Stanford in order to live with this lout.
Ned is video chatting with Kevin Dingle (don鈥檛 you just love these wacky character names?), an employee of Ned鈥檚 back home in Michigan. They鈥檙e trying to hack Laird鈥檚 computer so Ned can dig up some dirt on Laird and persuade his daughter to break it off with him.
When Ned hears Laird and Stephanie approaching the office, he hides under the desk — and he stays there, making horrified faces, as Laird and Stephanie make love.
That鈥檚 right. Rather than stand up and announce himself and make some sort of excuse for why he鈥檚 in the room, Ned chooses to stay hidden while his daughter and her crass boyfriend have sex just above him.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
When I tell you that鈥檚 not even the most noxious scene in Why Him? please believe me. Please spend your hard-earned movie-attending dough on just about anything else playing at the multiplex. For crying out loud, even Bad Santa 2 and Office Christmas Party are better, or at least not as rank as this stinker.
The premise of Why Him? is SO tired. How many movies and sitcoms have we seen about the father who thinks his daughter鈥檚 boyfriend/husband/fiance/whatever isn鈥檛 good enough for her?
In this case, Dad鈥檚 horror is justified. The guy romancing his daughter is a nightmare. Yes, he鈥檚 an obscenely famous and wealthy video game inventor, but he鈥檚 also a manic, infantile, grotesquely inappropriate, aggressively needy and self-absorbed creep.
We share Dad鈥檚 loathing for the boyfriend, but we also have a really, really difficult time empathizing with the supposedly super-smart and grounded and wonderful daughter who is in love with this clown.
Ned is an old-fashioned family guy who runs an old-fashioned printing company in Grand Rapids. He and his wife, Barb (Megan Mullally), have two wonderful children: the aforementioned Stephanie and her younger, weirdly formal brother, Scotty (Griffin Gluck).
Stephanie invites the family out to California to spend Christmas without telling them she has dropped out of Stanford and she鈥檚 living with a wealthy techie in his 30s.
Good move, Stephanie.
Laird鈥檚 mansion is festooned with hideous art, e.g., a dead moose floating in a tank of its own urine. (Can you guess what will happen with that tank down the road?) He has a full-time spiritual adviser named Gustav (Keegan-Michael Key), who seems aware and resigned to the fact he鈥檚 counseling a developmentally stunted person.
Laird gets a giant tattoo of the Fleming family on his back, makes sexually suggestive remarks to Stephanie鈥檚 mother, describes having sex with Stephanie in graphic detail at a family dinner, gives wildly inappropriate advice to young Scotty, and builds a bowling alley featuring Ned鈥檚 likeness on the wall in order to win over Ned.
Not funny, not funny, not funny, not funny, not funny.
And in one of the most egregious cases in recent years of crowbarring a bit into a movie, we鈥檙e told Ned was a big fan of Kiss back in the day, which leads to a monumentally unfunny and oh-so-predictable payoff later in the story.
Years ago, the great Roger Ebert told me it takes people with real talent to make the most unforgettably terrible movies. Hack directors and wooden actors will deliver consistently mediocre fare, but the most spectacular misfires are often the result of gifted people taking a shot at something different — and crashing and burning in legendary fashion.
Think of Lucasfilm鈥檚 production of Howard the Duck. Spielberg鈥檚 1941. Beatty and Hoffman and Elaine May with Ishtar. Michael 鈥The Deer Hunter鈥 Cimino and Heaven鈥檚 Gate. Rob Reiner, director of A Few Good Men and The Princess Bride and Misery, giving us North, which inspired Roger鈥檚 immortal passage: 鈥淚 hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it.鈥
Granted, Why Him? director John Hamburg isn鈥檛 Steven Spielberg or Rob Reiner, but he鈥檚 written some big hits (Meet the Parents, Zoolander) and he knows comedy.
Jonah Hill has a 鈥渟tory鈥 credit on the film. Cranston and Franco are two of the most gifted and versatile actors on the planet. Supporting players from Mullaly to Keegan-Michael Key to Cedric the Entertainer try their best.
That鈥檚 a whole lot of talent contributing to a black hole of a comedy. — Chicago Sun-Times/Universal UClick
MTRCB Rating: R-13
Rating: Zero stars
