Why Him?

Why Him?
Starring James Franco, Bryan Cranston, Zoey Deutch, Keegan-Michael Key

Directed by John Hamburg

The Story:
In rural Michigan, Ned Fleming (Bryan Cranston) is the longtime owner of a printing business, and obviously business isn't booming with technology on the rise.  He's an overprotective, yet loving, father to teenage son Scotty (Griffin Gluck) and Stanford college daughter Stephanie (Zoey Deutch), and doting husband to Barb (Megan Mullally).  He's especially close with Stephanie, as the two have had a very tight bond throughout her childhood years.

So when he discovers she has a boyfriend she never told him about, he's wary of the new man.  Stephanie invites the family to California for Christmas to meet her new boyfriend, and he's not exactly the normal type.  Laird Mayhew (James Franco) is ten years older, a high school dropout, riddled with tattoos, and is also a tech millionaire video game developer. 

Laird invites the family to stay at his mansion, which is so high-tech they don't use any paper (including for the toilet), is run by Laird's right-hand man, concierge and personal trainer Gustav (Keegan-Michael Key) and everything is watched under the watchful eye of artificial intelligence, Siri-like Justine (voiced by Kaley Cuoco).  For Ned, this is a culture shock to the extreme, and when Laird asks Ned for his approval to marry Stephanie, he denies him flat.  He feels Stephanie can do better, and Laird sets out - in his own, goofball way - to win Ned over. 

The Synopsis:
For me, comedies are my least favorite genre of movie.  For the most part, I can't re-watch them and find them as funny the second or third time around, and it takes a rare film for me to really enjoy it more than once.  They're the most formulaic of the genres, taking the same premise and tweaking details here and there to try to be original, but more times than not failing to do so.  Such is the case with "Why Him?" which would've been a ripoff of "Meet the Parents" if it wasn't directed by the same man who wrote the screenplay for the latter.  However, it also rips off other films of the like such as "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" (and the subsequent modern-day remake "Guess Who?"), as well as countless direct-to-DVD movies.  Still, I found myself laughing and immediately afterward wondering: "what was I just laughing at?"

James Franco plays to his strength here as the offbeat, eccentric Laird Mayhew, a man who curses every other second, but has a heart of gold.  He's sincere and honest, even if it's expressed with vulgar language.  Bryan Cranston is your typical sweater-wearing, midwestern father who goes to church on Sundays, believes in hard work and determination, has no clue what modern slang means (in a rather humorous running gag he doesn't understand a certain word that has a deeply sexual meaning), and is as doting as they come.  However, he also is very sincere and honest, which adds to the fact that - despite this being a totally raunchy, crude movie - there's no true malicious intent with any of the characters.  Both Ned and Laird truly want what's best for Stephanie, but neither really care enough to ask her what's best for her.

Thus is the struggle in the film, as it happened with so many other films of the like, with Franco and Cranston going head-to-head in every scene, one side the youthful, optimistic dreamer and the other an aged, almost bitter man whose dreams have now become work.  The typical two ends of the same coin, the yin and the yang, and so begins the battle. 

Gags ensue to great ends, and there's even some moments of connection between Laird and Ned (finding a Christmas tree in particular is a surprisingly bonding moment).  While the film focuses almost entirely on the two men, the women have very little to do.  As Stephanie's mother, Megan Mullally delivers some humorous zingers and steals one scene in particular where she's trying to seduce her husband after vaping some weed, but ultimately her character is very one-note.  Such the same with Zoey Deutch's Stephanie, who is the neutral party in the feud, trying to unite the two men and doing so with an almost child-like charm that makes the awkward sex scenes all the more awkward. 

The award for scene stealer goes to Keegan-Michael Key, as the extremely eccentric Gustav, who delivers one-liners and hilarious physical comedy to perfection, especially when he tries to catch Laird off-guard with his martial arts prowess (or lack thereof).  Him - and a particularly entertaining Japanese toilet - are where most of the laughs were derived from, as the banter between Laird and Ned grows old very fast.

As it is with every film of this style, it ends with one truly serious moment that puts everything into perspective and leads to a heartwarming finish, so there's no big surprise there.  What was surprising about the film, as I alluded to earlier, is how there's no real bad guy in the film.  Franco's character is over-the-top, but he means well.  Cranston's character is uptight and old-fashioned, but he too means well.  There's no one to root against, which was the one relief the film had.  As I said, I found myself laughing a lot, and then wondering why I was laughing in the first place.

Still, it's very formulaic.

The Summary:
In the annals of cinematic history, "Why Him?" will serve as a mere speck on the history of comedy, but has just enough humor and charm to see when you're bored.

The Score: B-