Review: Why Him?

Another month, another James Franco film. The inexhaustibly ubiquitous actor lends his endearingly goofy charm to Why Him?, a sometimes amusing tale from director and co-writer John Hamburg.

Hamburg had a hand in scripting both Meet the Fockers and its sequel Little Fockers as well as both Zoolander films, so this film's mixture of cringe and bromance is right in his wheelhouse. The plot isn't exactly brand spanking new: father is horrified by daughter's new boyfriend, hilarity and hijinks ensue. In this case, the father is Ned Fleming (Bryan Cranston), who is horrified to discover beloved daughter Stephanie (Zoey Deutch) has been in a relationship with Laird Mayhew (Franco).

Laird may be a wealthy and famous video-game inventor who can afford a gated wood-and-glass Palo Alto mansion and have moose and other animals roam on his estate, but he is also a shirtless, tattooed, party-loving, cuss-happy guy with little regard for people's personal space. He may have no filter, Stephanie acknowledges to her dad, but Laird's heart is always in the right place.

Indeed, Laird may be too over-eager in his attempts to ingratiate himself with Stephanie's family. From tattooing the family's holiday portrait onto his back to building a customised bowling alley for Ned, Laird is just a lost boy waiting to be found. Yet he's doing himself no favours with his ridiculous art collection (including a dead moose suspended in its own urine) or, even worse, the fact that he's made such a killing in the tech industry whilst Ned is struggling to keep his printing company afloat. Laird's insistence on having a paperless household is galling to Ned, especially when he's forced to enlist the help of Gustav (an always uproarious Keegan-Michael Key), Laird's German manservant, to fix a malfunctioning toilet.

The actors are all such professionals that they sell the flimsy material, but the film never truly gets its rhythm going. Hamburg doesn't help matters by letting gags go on far longer than they should. Still, Why Him? is harmless enough, something that one wouldn't mind casually observing in the comfort of one's own home when there's nothing else to watch or in the discomfort of an airplane where choices are limited.

Why Him?

Directed by: John Hamburg

Written by: John Hamburg, Ian Helfer

Starring: James Franco, Bryan Cranston, Zoey Deutch, Megan Mullaly, Keegan-Michael Key, Cedric the Entertainer, Kaley Cuoco, Griffin Gluck, Casey Wilson, Andrew Rannells, Adam DeVine