Fathers' Day

Warner Bros. | Release Date: May 9, 1997

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

43	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Watch Now

Buy on

Stream On

Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Marjorie Baumgarten

Fathers' Day offers little in the way of comic relief. Read full review

Jay Carr

Robin Williams and Billy Crystal don't quite hit a dream team level of hilarity in Fathers' Day. They don't send you home empty-handed, either. [9 May 1997, p.C7]

Lawrence Toppman

Maybe Hollywood has used this "uptight guy liberated by free spirit" idea too many times. Either way, this is a form of recycling that no longer pays off. [9 May 1997, p.1E]

Jonathan Rosenbaum

The mechanical possibilities are worked out with precision and relish, but [the director] is careful not to allow the comedy to linger too long in the realm of real feelings. A platitudinous ending restores a safe and sane emotional order.” Read full review

Roger Ebert

A brainless feature-length sitcom with too much sit and no com. Read full review

Michael Wilmington

It's just another Williams and Crystal movie. But let's see a few more. Read full review

Katherine Dillin

Likable performances, but the story's brash and hyper, though sweet, delivery grows wearing, especially the sexual innuendo. Read full review

EmpireBob Mccabe

A very text-book example of two actors better than the material, Crystal and Williams do their best but can't elevate this far. Read full review

Owen Gleiberman

If Fathers’ Day really had been released in the mid-’80s, I’d have said it was so funny I forgot to laugh. Read full review

Rene Rodriguez

Considering the talent involved, Fathers' Day comes off as a whopping disappointment. Williams and Crystal are a good team: You just wouldn't know it by watching them here. [9 May 1997, p.4G]

Robert Dominguez

At least Williams and Crystal, old pals off the screen, seem to be enjoying themselves. Read full review

Jay Boyar

There's an air of desperation about this movie - a sense that the stars are yearning to do something so patently undemanding that it just can't miss. Read full review

Steven Rea

He emerges stinking, and so, alas, does Fathers' Day. [9 May 1997, p.03]

James Berardinelli

Travesty. Read full review

Peter Stack

Robin Williams and Billy Crystal, teaming for the first time on the big screen, are moderately fun but suffer from what looks like a case of too-calculated Hollywood packaging. Read full review

Barbara Shulgasser

It's that predictable sweetness that makes any of this more than just bearable. Read full review

Steve Persall

The movie is unambitious and sweet and nothing more. Precisely what we expect from producer-director Ivan Reitman these days, after good-natured audacity got his career started with hits like Animal House and Stripes. [9 May 1997, p.5]

Keith Phipps

Add to these problems the fact that Fathers' Day is a comedy starring two reputedly hilarious people who don't make you laugh once, and you have a movie that would be great if everything about it weren't terrible. Read full review

Rick Groen

Hollywood's big-screen answer to France's 1983 charming film Les Comperes is a wacky star vehicle wildly out of control. [9 May 1997, p.D1]

Janet Maslin

Not surprisingly, there are some slow patches and formulaic touches, but that's a fair trade for the fun of watching Mr. Williams and Mr. Crystal make an irresistible comic team. Read full review

Doug Thomas

Fans of Crystal and Williams certainly will enjoy the pairing, but this is far from their most inspired work. Read full review

Nick Bradshaw

Writers Ganz and Mandell (Parenthood, City Slickers) go pleasingly light on the syrup and sentimentality. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh

How much you enjoy the film will depend entirely on how much you enjoy the spectacle of Williams spewing forth streams of nonsensical gibberish in an attempt to impersonate a German record producer, and Crystal pitching snit fits. Read full review

Mike Clark

No masterpiece but undeniably heavy on laughs, the movie is put over by the buffed, lubricated dynamics of two leads who substantially transcend what is otherwise a borderline tepid dose of family values. [9 May 1997, p.13D]

Todd McCarthy

Robin Williams and Billy Crystal can each provoke a lot more laughs in a minute of standup than they jointly manage during the entire running time of Fathers' Day. Read full review

Desson Thomson

Crystal’s deadpan expressions and one liners interlock perfectly with Williams’s multiple personalities and verbal asides. They’re like basketball all-stars flipping no-look passes, trading slam-dunks and practically chest-bumping each other. Director Ivan Reitman doesn’t have to do more than keep time. Read full review

Stephen Hunter

A lamebrained American remake of the classic, bitter French farce "Les Comperes," Fathers' Day offers sporadic laughs of the lowest kind -- the old outhouse-bites-man thing -- but some conspicuous idiocy as well. Read full review