Delayed Reaction: Dad

What I Guessed It Was About: Three generations of men in a family bond with one another. The old one probably dies.

How I Came Into It: This was potentially very poor timing to watch this movie. It turns out, my own grandfather was only a couple days away from dying when I watched this. Thankfully, we weren't especially close or else this could've been an absolute land mine. Even still, I'm always a sucker for a movie about a father and son and something emotional happens. That's an easy formula.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) Jack Lemmon, Ted Danson, and Ethan Hawke as three generations of a family with Olympia Dukakis as the grandmother and Kathy Baker and Kevin Spacey as the sister and brother. That's solid casting, especially in hind sight. All the actors navigate the treacherous melodrama as well as they can. I didn't even recognize Lemmon at first. The best moments in the movie were between him and Dukakis as the realities of their lives are clashing with the dreams he remembers. A film with those two as the leads would be far more interesting.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: Sometimes, a movie has such transparent awards intentions that it manages to turn me off it before even watching. This is more common among movies that then failed to get any awards attention, which is what happened with Dad. You can virtually see the brow-sweat on Ted Danson who was trying to make a case that he's more than a funny guy with this movie (and remember Cousins? The man wanted respect). Where this film ultimately fails is that it doesn't earn its moments. The Ted Danson who left his family for his career is not the same character that Ted Danson is for 95% of the movie. Everything else feels false because of that, no matter how many montaged father-son-grandfather fashion shows they do.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend