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Goldthwait's script turns into a surprisingly restrained, focused sendup of the blind adulation often bestowed on flawed personalities once they croak too soon.
Offering Robin Williams his richest role in memory while serving up a nice cold bowl of shock soup for the audience, World's Greatest Dad is a surprisingly smart and severely twisted dark comedy from comic Bobcat Goldthwait.
Making Kyle godawful may seem edgy, even authentic. But it's pure setup.
With his delicate mix of sick humor and compassion, Goldthwait is that rare comic writer who can legitimately be compared to Lenny Bruce.
There's more going on here than the age-old struggle between maturity and its surly teen antithesis.
Who could have guessed that a cat named Bobcat could write a screenplay or direct a film as refreshingly sensitive as this one?
... This voyage through the moral maze is more entertaining and whisper it quietly, more profound, than most.
Goldthwait has given it a title that will make some shy away. But don't. It's a comedy about the particularly American capacity to create legends out of the dead, and it's sharper than most.
Beware that poster, with its jolly red writing and Mork from Ork's face thereon. This is not the Robin Williams of Old Dogs and License To Wed.
A comedy of quite astonishing blackness.
Writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait can't quite manage to bring things to a satisfying conclusion, but he's good enough at weaving the freakishly perverse into the everyday without the results seeming too forced.
Goldthwait's pacing is uncertain, and his humour is frequently "off", but the sense of risky provocation is compelling.
We can't wait to see what Goldthwait does next.
It's good to see Williams trying something darker than usual, but it's a pity the whimsy is laid on so thick.
Sadly, the ending seems unsatisfying but the journey there is a funny one.
Williams keeps his head above water, and a giddy climax recuperates some of the original energy -- enough, at least, to make this director's next project one worth rooting for anew.
This film is bold and provocative, but it's weak at the core. It is the weakness of an old dog trying desperately to learn new tricks.
It's the most daring black comedy of the year, and I admire its willingness to be not only vicious, but downright un-American.
What threatens to be the World's Greatest Dud proves anything but.
The cinematography and some of the performances are not stellar, but Goldthwait's script is extraordinary, examining the choices we make between surviving and really living.
Odd, confident, challenging, and featuring a brilliant turn by Williams. If only there was just a little more to it.
A startlingly excellent dark comedy about the power of positive posthumous PR. One of 2010's must-see movies.
The bravest, smartest comedy of the year.
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