Frank's travelling light but carrying excess baggage.
2009-12-04
$21.0M
99 min
Eight months after the death of his wife, Frank Goode looks forward to a reunion with his four adult children. When all of them cancel their visits at the last minute, Frank, against the advice of his doctor, sets out on a road trip to reconnect with his offspring. As he visits each one in turn, Frank finds that his children's lives are not quite as picture-perfect as they've made them out to be.
Kind of boring road movie
Robert De Niro plays a widower who is down because his four kids all canceled on coming home for Thanksgiving, so he decides to go see each one instead (Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell and Drew Barrymore), which entails traveling around the country over the next week or so.
I don't get all the positive ratings for this. Sure, it's well made, has a great cast and makes a good point, but it's just humdrum from beginning to end. Maybe the story works better for those who can relate to De Niro's character, but for everyone else this is a really slow and boring road movie. Being boring is the ultimate sin in cinema.
If you want to see Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale in an outstanding drama, check out 2007's "Snow Angels."
GRADE: C
