Trite feel-good for 40-something husbands

Rating: 4/10 (15 April 2002)

Good acting. Fun script. Some good lines and funny moments. But
it's just Hollywood garbage with some slightly challenging
themes.
"Dad" emerges from his middle-class suburban existence and
achieves enlightenment and individuation--tells off the boss, his
wife, etc,--while his bitchy wife melts down. He's the only person in
the movie with any sense of humor. How satisfying!
Okay, he dies at the end (which we knew would happen from the
opening pre-credit scene), but that just allows him to remain the
eternal shining self-actualized guy that every 40-something dad
thinks he is (at least potentially), rather than dealing with messy
complexities.
In typical academy fashion, it just slightly breaks the Hollywood
mold--enough for critics to rave about its "originality," but not
enough to challenge the standard formula. So it scored. Just like
Pulp Fiction (which used the *wildly* original technique of a
chronology shift in an otherwise dumb tale to achieve its brilliant
originality).
Trivial. Trite. Pretentious in its attempts to surmount that. Vastly
overrated. Kind of fun, but not much else.