Fathers' Day

Robin Williams and Billy Crystal are such a perfect pairing, they could only disappoint. They don't. The problem comes from loose strands in the storyline and Ivan Reitman's direction.

Colette (Nastassja Kinski) has a teenage son, called Scott (Charlie Hofheimer), who rides off into the Californian smog with his girl on a motorbike and doesn't come back. She goes to Jack (Crystal), a lawyer, who was once a boyfriend, and informs him that Scott is his. Jack takes the view, "that was then, this is now", and, anyway, he has work to do.

She goes to Dale (Williams), a failed playwright and former college date, and tells him the same thing. Dale thinks fatherhood is cool and practices "Hello, son" in front of the mirror.

Jack and Dale meet by chance and discover they are proxy dads to the same boy and join forces to find him.

The subtlety comes from Crystal's underplaying, although the rat-a-tat-tat ad-libs and improv one-liners slow the movie down. It is a case of everyone having such a good time on set that noone told the director he has a job to do.