Father's Day is a remake of the 1984 French farce Les Comperes. The original is brilliant and the American remake is pretty darn good. However, to enjoy the film, you must be willing to give up a number of factors usually considered important. The story line, for example, is completely, absolutely and totally unbelieveable. A 16 year old boy runs away from home and his mother approaches two of her ex-lovers, telling each seperately that they are the father of the child. The two men search out the kid, and in the process run into each other.

        Billy Crystal plays the role of Jack Lawrence, a sophisticated and suave lawyer, and the character Gerard Depardieu played brilliantly in the original. But Crystal doesn't translate easily ‰into Depardieu. One of the truly bizarre and comic elements of Les Compere is Depardieu's partiality for wandering around headbutting everyone who gets in his way. For Depardieu, it seems not only natural, but appropriate. The man is, after all, a physical monster. Crystal, on the other hand, is but a fly weight, and the head-butting seems a little odd. Nonetheless, its quite comical.

        Robin Williams is the other psuedo-dad, Dale Putley in the role originally played by Pierre Richard. The two would be fathers balance each other out of course. Jack is polished and hardnosed, while Dale is clumsy, soft and sentimental. Williams doesn't act much, but then again he never does, his career is based on a comic bag of tricks that he repeats over and over in various costumes and situations. In my book, Williams' antics gets tedious fast, but in Father's Day he is the perfect fool.

        The rest of the cast are sadly orphaned. Natasha Kinsky is wasted a‹s the mother, its a stupid role and she does little to give it life. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is equally ridiculous as Crystal's wife. She has nothing to do and she doesn't do it. The runaway son, Scott, played by Charlie Hofheimer looks and acts like he wandered off the Bradley Bunch set. And Scott's real father spends a large portion of the film stuck upside down in a porta-potty - don't ask.. Many aspects of this movie defy common sense, but you cannot apply logic to French farce - the two are mutually exclusive. You just have to check your brains at the door and let the foolishness take control.

        Basically, all this film hopes to do, in both the original and remake, is provide a vehicle for the two central characters to show off and enjoy themselves. Crystal and Williams are perfect. In a season of humorless comedies, at least Father's Day offers an adequate number of chuckles. The film is worth a look just to catch the uncredited cameo by Mel Gibson.

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