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Poster (c) Paramount Pictures
You can tell it’s September when Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star is the best movie that is released on its weekend. What’s worse is that it will probably be top at the box office. I don’t go into a movie produced by Happy Madison (Adam Sandler’s production company) and expect high-brow, witty humor. I expect a humorous, crude experience. Dickie Roberts was neither. Most of the parts that could have been hilarious turned out to be exactly what was seen in the trailers, and, I hate to say this, but with more crude humor, then at least it would have been cringe-inducing so I could do something with my mouth, because for most of the time it was motionless.
In case you haven’t seen the ads and commercials plastered everywhere, Dickie Roberts stars David Spade (in an obvious show on why comedians should stay comedians and not actors) as Dickie Roberts, a former child star. Beginning and ending with something like an “E! True Hollywood Story,” which is forgotten and completely unnecessary, he’s washed up and plays in weekly poker games with other child stars. However, he’s dying for a comeback role, and one in Rob Reiner’s new film, and to research the role, he moves into a family’s home for a while to experience the childhood that he never had. The family he moves into looks idyllic and perfect at first, but parents Grace (Mary McCormack) and George (Craig Bierko) are having troubles in their marriage, children Sam (Scott Terra) and Sally (Jenna Boyd) are having troubles at school. Will this help Dickie Roberts? Will he get the part in the movie? Hm…I don’t know….
In a comedy like this, acting isn’t important. Nor is the plot. It’s all about the laughs, and Dickie Roberts barely had any. Sure, there were a few chuckles, and more smiles, but nothing hilarious, fall-out-of-your-seat type of laughter. If Chicago revived the movie musical, and X-Men revived the comic-book movie, Dickie Roberts tried to revive the pratfall comedy, unsuccessfully. If seeing Dickie crashing into various objects makes you laugh out loud, then be my guest and see this movie.
One setback was all of the subplots. Sam has a bully problem at school, which is brought up about once, as is Sally’s about a “popular” girl in school. Although it could be said that it had bonding between Dickie and the kids, it was completely unnecessary and added to an already overlong length. There was enough of that in the other scenes. Also, Sam has a crush on a new neighbor (after Edie McClurg moves out, in one of the funniest scenes of the movie), it’s never brought up again after the scene shown in the commercials (with Sam and Dickie dancing on stilts…hilarious?), and the girl, Barbie (Ambyr Childers), has the worst acting this year, and possibly of all time. Speaking of acting, Spade, when it came to the obligatory emotional, message-ridden theme (which was too hokey and force-fed), he actually did a little better than I thought he would do, but he isn’t anything that would be considered actual actor-quality acting. McCormack portrayed a mom like a mom, which was all that she needed to do. However, Terra and Boyd often seemed like they were trying to contain their laughter (which was odd, because it was never really funny), and both came off flat.
Don’t pay to see this movie in theaters. If you want to see the funniest part of Dickie Roberts, see another movie and then sneak into it for a few minutes during the end credits. It’s the only hilarious part of the movie.
Rated PG-13 for crude and sex-related humor, language and drug references.
Review Date: September 6, 2003