Review: 'World's Greatest Dad'

Screechy-voiced comic Bobcat Goldthwait segued years ago into movie directing. His 1991 "Shakes the Clown" has a cult following, his next, "Sleeping Dogs Lie," came 15 years later. Picking up the pace, Goldthwait is now on board for his latest film, "World's Greatest Dad," which he also wrote, starring Robin Williams in one of those dreary, somnolent performances of his that often gets mistaken for serious acting. He plays Lance Clayton, a Seattle high school teacher whose wife has left him, who can't get any of his novels published, and whose son Kyle (Daryl Sabara) is a foul-mouthed washout despised, for good reason, by his classmates and just about everybody else. What's a dad to do? At around the halfway point the film takes an intriguing swerve, as Kyle is canonized and Lance is unexpectedly launched into celebrityhood. Flashes of deadpan outrageousness occasionally redeem the dourness. Grade: B- (Rated R for language, crude and sexual content, some drug use, and disturbing images.)