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About My Father Reviews
The best thing by far is De Niro and his zinger of a screwball-comedy performance.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 12, 2024
Just like how it happens here, even Hollywood doesn’t mind revisiting mundane tropes only to have some fun. The film may not be original and refreshing, but Robert De Niro is as he calls himself in the film. He’s the father of all, as the title says.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 27, 2023
Unfunny comedy.
Full Review | Original Score: C | Aug 6, 2023
It’s an oddball movie that had me laughing out loud, perhaps not for reasons the filmmakers intended, but I enjoyed it anyway.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 5, 2023
What keeps About My Father a touch above tolerable for the most part is De Niro’s genuine and endearing chemistry with the movie’s nominal leading man, the popular American stand-up comedian Sebastian Maniscalco.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 3, 2023
Clearly intended to be a cringe comedy a la Meet the Parents... but it stretches the concept of “funny” so thin that the memory of that scene in which a cat pees on the contents of a smashed urn will feel like dizzying comic heights in comparison.
Full Review | Original Score: 44/100 | Jul 27, 2023
The characters are all very thinly drawn stereotypes, the comic set pieces and culture clash comedy are extremely tired, and the plot is so blandly predictable that you can map out the entire story from minute one.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 25, 2023
I laughed maybe once or twice in this entire hour and half movie. Just not funny. You can see the jokes coming a mile away. If you've seen the trailer...you've seen all the best jokes in the trailer.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Jul 24, 2023
Sebastian Maniscalco plays a leading man for the first time, and he delivers the goods. Robert De Niro never phones it in. Director Laura Terruso has made a very lean film and not a shred of the comic material is wasted.
Full Review | Jul 18, 2023
We should not feel that the actors had more fun than the audience. Wait for streaming.
Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 7, 2023
Even with the presence of Robert de Niro, About my Father ends up being a film with few laughs, exaggerated situations, and a story you will quickly forget about in minutes. [Full review in Spanish]
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 30, 2023
About My Father is 51 percent just fine, 49 percent irritating.
Full Review | Jun 16, 2023
A sweet movie full of heart. Unfortunately all the best comedy scenes are in the trailer.
Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jun 13, 2023
The worst thing about the film is that it seems there's nothing, or no one, behind the camera. [Full review in Spanish]
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 12, 2023
The structure is so dull it's reminiscent of countless others, and the supporting cast, while celebrated, are merely there as decorations. [Full review in Spanish]
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 9, 2023
About My Father seems a poor bet to nudge the uninitiated toward Sebastian Maniscalco’s touring act -- and it probably won’t do much for his surely doomed bid for rom-com lead legitimacy.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 7, 2023
I will admit that this is not my kind of comedy, but I was charmed in parts.
Full Review | Jun 6, 2023
A much less funny Meet the Parents meets a much less engaging My Big Fat Greek Wedding, with a dash of low-rent Wedding Crashers thrown in.
Director Laura Terruso is hamstrung by the thin script, and what looks like the oversized ego of Maniscalco, who’s used to telling his jokes to arena-sized audiences — and doesn’t do much to modulate his delivery for the movie screen.
Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 6, 2023
About My Father is far from being a great movie, but it's the kind of film that knows what it wants to say and how to tell it without pretenses. [Full review in Spanish]
Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jun 5, 2023
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‘about my father’ review: robert de niro and sebastian maniscalco headline limp culture-clash comedy.
The pair play an Italian-American widower and his son in a comedy co-starring Leslie Bibb, Anders Holm and Kim Cattrall.
By Frank Scheck
Frank Scheck
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If it’s true that every U.S. senator looks in the mirror and sees a president, it’s even truer that every stand-up comedian does the same and sees a movie star. The latest comic looking to upgrade to the silver screen is Sebastian Maniscalco , who specializes in routines revolving around his Italian-American heritage in his act. The result is About My Father , which the comedian co-wrote (with Austen Earl) and stars in opposite Robert De Niro , delivering the latest in his series of comically grumpy-old-man performances.
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He also talks about his widowed father Salvo (De Niro), a preening hairstylist whom we first see in a younger version for which De Niro sports a dyed beard and ponytail (presumably, that de-aging process in The Irishman was too expensive). Sebastian — he doesn’t bother to change his name for the character, but here he’s a hotel manager rather than a comedian — also shows off his beautiful girlfriend Ellie ( Leslie Bibb , appealing as always), whose WASP roots date back to the Mayflower.
That last piece of information should immediately clue you in about which comedic route the film is going to pursue. If not, I’ve got two words for you: culture clash. Ellie’s wealthy patrician parents invite her and Sebastian to spend July 4 th weekend with them at their palatial summer estate. Sebastian is reluctant to leave his father alone for the holiday, especially since Salvo spares no opportunity to guilt trip him about it. Not to mention blackmailing him by refusing to give him his mother’s ring to propose to Ellie unless he meets the parents first.
Hilarity fails to ensue via such episodes as Sebastian pretending to be a bad tennis player to impress his father (don’t ask) and having to reveal himself when his game partner Tigger becomes irate at his feigned fumbling. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’re familiar with the would-be comic highlight in which Sebastian rides some sort of water jetpack and winds up exposing himself when his trunks fall down. And when Salvo generously offers to make the family a real Italian dinner, he’s forced to improvise the ingredients with disastrous results.
Maniscalco, who regularly sells out arenas, is one of the most popular stand-ups going these days and doesn’t deviate too far from his comedic persona in this first starring role (he’s previously been in such films as Green Book and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman , the latter also with De Niro). He’s smart enough to tone down his manic energy for the screen and proves appealing, especially when displaying his character’s vulnerability. De Niro, too, thankfully brings it down a notch from such movies as Dirty Grandpa , relying on his decades of screen iconicism to be comically intimidating and fully embodying Sebastian’s description of Salvo having a “resting bitch face.” Cattrall is a lot of fun, especially when her politician character has a complete meltdown after Salvo gives her a dramatic makeover just prior to a television appearance.
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‘About My Father’ Review: De Niro in Dad Mode Again
The comedian Sebastian Maniscalco enlists his “Irishman” colleague in this labored comedy, where gags fall flat.
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By Glenn Kenny
The stand-up comedian Sebastian Maniscalco first worked with Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s 2019 crime drama “The Irishman.” Maniscalco played the erratic real-life gangster Joey Gallo; De Niro’s character, Frank Sheeran, kills him in the movie. Scorsese has a near-uncanny knack for effectively using professional funnymen in serious roles — Jerry Lewis in “The King of Comedy” and Don Rickles in “Casino” to cite but two — and Maniscalco acquitted himself well in his small part.
The point we are obliged to get to is this: Maniscalco has now enlisted De Niro to act in “About My Father,” a romantic comedy largely derived from the comedian’s own life. How largely? Well, Maniscalco plays a character named Sebastian Maniscalco. He’s engaged to his ideal woman, Ellie (Leslie Bibb, who’s charming here), and has finally been invited to her very rich family’s Fourth of July weekend. In short order, Sebastian’s father, Salvo, is invited too. Salvo is an Italian immigrant from Sicily who runs a beauty salon, has a fierce work ethic, is dead cheap and severely opinionated, and has several other traits that make for engaging stand-up comedy and cinematic character work.
De Niro is reliable in his comedic mode. Here, with his hand gestures and the frequent monosyllabic exclamations of exasperation, the actor’s Salvo sometimes resembles a kinder, gentler version of his Jake LaMotta in “Raging Bull.” The supporting players David Rasche and Kim Cattrall as the future in-laws provide good comic foils for De Niro.
Alas, in less than an hour and a half of running time (the director Laura Terruso does orchestrate the proceedings with a palpable sense of dispatch), the movie demonstrates how quickly “amiable and inconsequential” can shift to “hackneyed and labored.” A sickly poultry improvisation gag involving a peacock falls flat, and the speed bump to the happy ending is right out of the Hallmark Movie Scriptwriter’s Handbook.
About My Father In theaters. Rated PG-13 for language, partial nudity, improvised-poultry humor. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. In theaters.
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