My Father the Hero

Take Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, plot lines from Preston Sturges's sociopathic screwball comedy The Lady Eve and a second-rate sitcom, add a dash of slapstick a la Jerry Lewis, and voila, you've got the basic mechanics of this film -- which would be just another predictable comedy of errors (with a lurid subtext as audience bait) if not for the thoroughly charming presence of Gerard Depardieu. Starring as a jet-setting, now-you-see-him-now-you-don't divorced father named Andrew, Depardieu decides that it is high time for him to spend some quality time with his young daughter Nicole (Heigl), whom he has not seen in more than a year. Much to Andre's surprise and consternation, Nicole has blossomed into a nubile, 14-year-old child-woman with a heavy princess attitude, who not only resents her father's excuse-filled absences in her life, but who would rather be caught shopping in a small town Wal-Mart than to join him for a vacation at a posh Caribbean resort. That is, until Nicole finds the Mystery Date of her dreams in the aquamarine paradise of the Bahamas -- a dark and hunky teenthrob named Ben (James). To gain Ben's attention, Nicole passes herself off as a “woman of the world” who is vacationing with her middle-aged “lover” (instead of her father, which just would not be cool). Before you can say “Lolita,” the unsuspecting Andre's reputation becomes the sin-steeped scuttlebutt of the entire resort, as Nicole keeps spewing one outrageous lie after another about her father and herself, and Ben becomes more and more drawn to her out of a sense of masculine protectiveness. For the life of me, I don't know why this film is being marketed as some sort of sexy teen farce of “the older man and the teen babe,” but I suppose audience consciousness has been thoroughly saturated by the now-mythical Amy Fisher-Joey Buttafuocco affair that it has blurred the lines between sordid reality and entertainment. But the reality of this film is that it is pretty innocent fare, for the most part, and Depardieu does prove his versatility by possessing a natural comic flair that eases him into the paunchy papa bear role. If only Miner (Forever Young) & Co. had opted for a touch of comedic class from the Golden Age of Hollywood, this film could have been a top-notch comedy. But maybe it's just not cool.