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An Actor Prepares

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An Actor Prepares

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Summary

Following his heart attack, a hard-drinking actor is forced to travel cross country with his estranged son on one final crazy adventure. Comedy, starring Jeremy Irons, Jack Huston and Matthew Modine

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Review

A star rating of 2 out of 5.

Andrew Collins

This leaden, formulaic father-son bonding comedy is predicated on the assumption that constant foul language - much of it spewing from the distinguished mouth of Jeremy Irons, essaying a hellraising, English-born, Hollywood-coarsened film star - is intrinsically, continually funny. He and his estranged, uptight documentarian son, Jack Huston (star of the flop remake of Ben-Hur), exchange f-words from the moment they reunite after dad's drinking and recreational drug abuse has put him in hospital. The pair then embark on a road trip to New York for daughter/sister Mamie Gummer's wedding, not that director/co-writer Steve Clark's script really goes anywhere. The humour is crude, first-draft stuff: Irons promises to reform his lifestyle with the line, "No tits, toots or sips!"; we also see a lot of his bare behind and hear much about his genitals. Amid all this one-note ribaldry, the convenient thawing of the central relationship does nothing to earn our empathy (not even with a shoehorned-in testicular cancer scare). While decent actors like Will Patton, Ben Schwartz and Matthew Modine are reduced to cameos, the biggest waste of talent is Irons himself; he aims for Peter O'Toole in My Favorite Year, yet the role would have benefited from some of the depth, humour and subtlety he brought to Alfred opposite Ben Affleck's Batman.

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5.3/10

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Credits

Cast

rolenameAtticus SmithJeremy IronsAdamJack HustonJimmyBen SchwartzAnnabelleMamie GummerClementineMegalyn EchikunwokeWisdomWill PattonCharlieMatthew Modine

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Crew

rolenameDirectorSteve Clark (2)

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Languages

English

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