World's Greatest Dad

A mere thirteen months after its US release, World's Greatest Dad hit UK cinemas last week, and still nobody had heard of it. This is almost certainly down to the World's Worst Poster Campaign, which posited the film as a typically zany Robin Williams family scmaltz-com, when it is in fact the kind of intelligent, thoughtful, occasionally uncomfortable but often hilarious comedy that Wes Anderson wishes he could make. Yeah, I said that.

For the first half-hour, World's Greatest Dad plays out like most difficult-teen / out-of-touch-parent comedies, with former Spy Kids spy kid Daryl Sabara giving a horrifically good performance as the World's Most Wretched, Horny and Permanently Sweaty Son Kyle.

But when the story takes an unexpected turn for the monumentally dark, everyone who thought they'd come to see Licence To Wed 2 will get up and go home in disgust, and good riddance to them.

From this point on the World's Hairiest-Handed Actor provides real heart and soul (you know, the qualities entirely absent from Wes Anderson's films) to a genuinely thought-provoking story, and for once gives us the kind of restrained display you might never have expected from a cross-dressing Scottish tits-on-fire nanny.

Director Bobcat Goldthwait should be congratulated for a) having the World's Greatest Name, b) going from insanest cadet in the Police Academy films to indie legend, and c) giving film students the world over ammo for their essay about motifs in film with the zombie references that litter the script.

Sadly it falls to me to point out the World's Most Insignificant Continuity Error in the trailer: Having just finished printing the manuscript for his novel Door To Door Android, Robin Williams apparently attaches the front page to another story, Darwin's Pool! WHAT A HILARIOUS GAFFE!

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