A 13-year-old boy (Spencer Breslin) suffering from premature male-pattern baldness does his best to adjust to life in a new high school despite becoming the hapless target of every bully and cruel-minded teenager in town. While he's got the high-school janitor (Cuba Gooding Jr.) on his side, the follicly challenged Harold must still endure the merciless teasing of his unsympathetic peers. Rachel Dratch, Fred Willard, and Nikki Blonsky co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
There's little indication, beyond the endlessly unfunny school humiliations and fogey-dom signposts (ha ha, he uses Old Spice), that the notion of a preteen codger is worth our sympathies.
Harold is the type of one-note dead zone ideally suited for a bathroom break while sitting home on a Saturday night, alone and semidrunk, in front of the television.
The long stretches of dead air that, it can only be assumed, were supposed to be filled by laughter provide ample time for pondering what audience Harold, T. Sean Shannon's strenuously stale comedy, was intended to find.
Shot and lit like a mediocre TV show, the sporadically amusing Harold is a true Blockbuster contender, that is for the bargain bins of the video store. And soon.
Breslin is the best thing about this myopic comedy that doesn't even get any humorous traction from the stereotypes it presses through its low-fidelity independent film filter.
Abigail's older brother Spencer Breslin, does his own magnificent Little Mister Sunshine leading boy thing. Harold, a kinder, gentler Superbad minus the talking dirty teen motormouths. Move over, Judd Apatow.
The low-budget high-school comedy is no 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' but should provide for not only laughs but some insight into the life of a smart, 13-year-old outsider.
It's like an SNL skit turned into a movie, which since it is written and directed by someone who used to write for SNL that makes sense. There are some funny scenes and it was actually more enjoyable than I thought it would be.
I was a bit skeptical to watch this movie after reading the synopsis but I found myself cracking up from start to finish. I was rooting for Harold the entire movie.
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