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Friday, September 5, 2003
If you like abrasive, 'Dickie' delivers it in spades
By far the best parts of "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star" are its opening and closing sequences, in which it establishes the sad state of the washed-up kiddie actor and cleverly parades before us what seems to be every living former child star in existence.
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Between these two ghoulishly fascinating poles, it's a slightly better-than-average David Spade summer comedy that imparts its fair share of laughs but bogs down after a solid start and never makes anything special out of its premise.
Spade plays the one-time star of a '70s TV sitcom who was briefly a national sensation but has been on a long downhill slide since the show was canceled when he was 6. Now, at age 35, he's a very sorry case indeed who can't even begin to get a break.
One day, his chance to win back his self-esteem and the public's love comes in the form of a perfect part in a big movie. But its director (Rob Reiner, playing himself) rejects him, telling him he can't play a real person because he never experienced a real childhood.
So, hoping to change the director's mind, Dickie blows his earnings from a trashy autobiography to bribe a real, seemingly typical, family to allow him to move in with them for a month so he can experience a crash course in the childhood he never had.
This is not as hilarious a setup as it may sound, and there are moments when Dickie is being rolled around in a stroller or grossing out the family at the dinner table or desecrating the body of a dead rabbit when the movie becomes downright repulsive.
After this and "Joe Dirt," it's also clear that Spade is more effective in small doses (as in TV's "Just Shoot Me") or when teamed with another comic (as in "Black Sheep"). His persona is so abrasive that 99 minutes with the guy is just too much.
Still, the movie has a handful of hilarious sequences, its rather cruel depiction of the grim plight of ex-child stars gives it a certain edge, and its opening -- which takes the form of a cheesy E! Channel mockumentary -- is almost worth the price of admission.
Be sure to stick around for the end title sequence: a "Live-Aid"-like musical number in which maybe 50 former child actors -- everyone from Tony Dow to Rodney Allen Rippy -- sing their own particular blues. It's outrageous, funny and genuinely poignant.
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