Corporate Line: TV child star of the ’70s, Dickie Roberts is now 35 and parking cars. Craving to regain the spotlight, he auditions for a role of a “normal” guy, but the director quickly sees he is anything but normal. Desperate to win the part, Dickie hires a family to help him “replay” his childhood and assume the identity of an average, everyday kid. Several folk who are also involved in Dickie’s special world include: Sidney, Dickie’s longtime friend and agent; Cyndi, his on-again, off-again girlfriend; Peggy, Dickie’s real mother; George, Dickie’s adopted father figure; and Grace, his adopted mother figure.
The Good: David Spade has made it. He no longer has to worry about being left behind like the character in his film. After the wave on SNL, then some borderline movies and as the sidekick on television his finally come out as the star and blows the top off the joint.
The film is your standard fair, color-by-the-numbers Adam Sandler type film, which shouldn’t surprise us since he produced it. The difference seemed to be David Spade. Sandler could never pull this off.
The kids who play Dickie’s family are fantastic. Mary McCormick as the mom hits the nail on the head. It’s fun to see Dickie interacting at a card game with other former child stars Barry Williams, Corey Feldman, and Leif Garrett. At the end stay for the credits for a full out former-child-stars sing along ala We Are The World.
The meat on this bone is Spade and his brilliance. It seems little could have been written with all the hand movements and the way that Spade pulls them off, which you won’t be surprised that Spade was one of the screenwriters. He knows himself quite well and wrote himself a great part. One scene where Dickie is trying to ride a bike will have you in tears. Scene after scene Spade pulls a rabbit out of a hat.
The Bad: Not bad really, just something that I thought would be fun to point out. The irony of the film is that it is produced by Adam Sandler and written by David Spade – follow me here. The film is about life being one big Hollywood cliché and how there is life outside of the cliché, and ordinary life. Yet the entire film is really a Hollywood cliché. We don’t all live in big, glorious houses, we don’t all have really beautiful families that could only be in Hollywood and drive big expensive cars. And we don’t all live the perfect happy ending. That only happens in a movie. And the irony is the movie is an attempt to shed the stereotype and to get to the soul of being a human, when this film shows that being a human is living in Hollywood, having a great house, beautiful family, and lots of money and fame.
Frankly: Even with the irony of the situation the fact still remains, many child stars are actually treated as bad, if not worse, than how Spade portrays. It’s good to see many of those ex-stars getting a laugh in the face of the fact that they are out of the spotlight for good. The laughs don’t and won’t end right until the end. Don’t run for the bathroom or you’ll miss it.
+ Charlie Craine
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