Strong and Moving!

Purely Joyful Movie!

An action-packed slog

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Films directed by popular actors are often (though by no means always) the pits. Alas, "Harry & Son" is no exception. Paul Newman directed six movies, of which this is the fifth. Actors tend to concentrate on their own performances (number one), on the playing of other members of the cast (number two), on the script itself (a distant three), but on the camera-work and visual aspects, not at all! This approach often makes for dull and self-centered viewing -- great for their rabid fans, but dull for everyone else. "Harry & Son" consists of little more than a dreary succession of close-ups. The story is slack and uninteresting. The pace is dead slow. Technical qualities are minor. Music, photography and art direction are totally undistinguished.Admittedly, director Newman does occasionally try hard to speed things up, but he's defeated by the hammy, camera-hogging antics of the rest of the cast. The hazily developed and totally uninteresting story- line doesn't help either. Mind you, things do look promising on two ore three occasions, but Newman manages to muff these up too. Generally, the pace is slow and boring. Some say this is realistic, but I thought the characters and situations were straight out of fantasy land. For instance, at one stage, the hero, who claims to be a writer, receives a check from a magazine for an unsolicited contribution. Come off it! Who's kidding who? I've worked on dozens of magazines in my time and I can assure you that unsolicited contributions are not read by anyone. They go straight into the garbage bin, unless signed by a well-known name or presented personally to the editor. Anyway, the film just meanders on and on and on, with no conclusion in sight, until Newman presumably ran out of money.

I was never a fan of Paul Newman, but every once in a while he impressed me. On the other hand, I was (growing up) always a fan of Robbie Benson, and here -- again -- he does not disappoint.What does disappoint is the film, in general. It has quite a few good ingredients, including Newman and Benson, and certain segments are pretty interesting and decently done. Unfortunately, the separate parts of the film never quite come together as a whole.Harry is a construction worker who is having vision and neck problems, resulting in a near industrial accident that could heave been deadly; he gets fired. Looks for work, can't find any. Robbie Benson is his son who thinks he's a writer but actually details cars; he could work, but he thinks what's available is beneath him.Benson's best scene is when he and his ex-girlfriend are trying to "figure out" what happened. It's as good as any acting Benson ever did, though this is not my favorite Benson movie.The problem is that this film just sorta drifts along seemingly going nowhere. It's rather episodic, but the episodes don't seem to really fit together. The second problem is that a viewer wants to have some general idea of where a film is going...even if he or she ends up wrong. Well, here you just wonder where this film is wandering to. At least it isn't maudlin.Unfortunately, some of the highlights of the film are small supporting parts played by Ossie Davis and Morgan Freeman. Ellen Barki, Joanne Woodward, and Wilford Brimley have small, but significant roles. But the film really belongs to Paul Newman and Robby Benson, and I think more to Benson.

"Harry and Son" must have meant a lot to Paul Newman because he not only played Harry, but co-wrote the story and screenplay, as well as co-produced and directed the film. His wife, Joanne Woodward, also got dragged into this mess in a small supporting role.Before Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, and Newman's buddy Robert Redford stepped behind the camera and won Oscars for directing, Newman won a lot of praise and some awards for his 1968 directorial debut, "Rachel, Rachel," for which Woodward received an Oscar nomination. The film was also nominated for best picture, but Newman was passed over by the director's branch who nominated Stanley Kubrick for "2001: A Space Odyssey" instead (although it might be more accurate to say the Academy gave the best picture nomination that "2001" deserved to the Newman-Woodward film). Whatever promise Newman showed behind the camera wasn't fulfilled, however, and Newman directed only a handful of other films, the best of which, in my opinion, was 1971's "Sometimes a Great Notion" from Ken Kesey's novel about a logging family in Oregon that featured a remarkable scene involving a drowning. "Harry and Son" suggests that, as a director, Newman was spent. His first mistake was in casting himself as a construction worker, an ornery guy who would have been more suitable for George C. Scott, but made his biggest misstep by casting Robby Benson as his son. Robby Benson!? There was a time in the '70s before the Brat Pack era of the next decade when the soft-voiced, overly pretty, and annoyingly coy Benson seemed to get all the major male roles between the ages of 16 and 25. Fortunately, until the Brat Pack era of which he was not a part, there weren't too many major roles in movies for males aged 16 to 25. Movie audiences, even the 18-25 year olds said to represent the demographic Hollywood covets most, preferred stories with adult characters played by middle-aged actors, whether it was Sean Connery (or Roger Moore) as James Bond, Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry, or any of the roles played by Newman, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson, Burt Reynolds, and the other box-office draws of that era.Benson was awful in just about everything he did, and always too goody-goody and sensitive to be believed. He's not convincing as Newman's son, nor does he believably portray a writer which the construction worker's son aspires to be. He sits grimacing at his typewriter, aggressively pounding the keys, and when his father asks why the stories he writes are always being rejected, he calmly says, "It's part of the ritual." That sounds like a remark that a neophyte writer would write for a character who is a writer. It's not what a writer would likely utter while watching the rejection slips piling up, suffering a crisis of confidence on one hand, and feeling defensively superior on the other.Newman isn't much better. I guess he couldn't help it if he looks too handsome and physically fit for a 58-year-old laborer, but that's because he wasn't a laborer. He was a 58-year-old movie star who kept himself in tip-top shape and resembles a male model more than a construction worker even in his snug jeans and flannel shirt. Newman would convincingly play a blue collar guy a decade later in the excellent "Nobody's Fool," but he didn't write the script for that and left the directing to Robert Benton. As for Benson, he went on to voice the beast in Disney's animated "Beauty and the Beast," and has mercifully remained behind-the-camera ever since. Sorry, Robby, but as an actor, you stank.Brian W. Fairbanks

You see, it can be done. It is possible, even in the last decades of the 20th century, to make a good feature film that concentrates on character and eschews action. We don't need car chases to help us through the story, because we care about Harry and Howie and want to see what befalls them. Paul Newman co-wrote, directed and produced this absorbing tale of father and son, continuing his long tradition of intelligent movie-making.Harry works the wrecking ball on a demolition site. He is a gruff, inarticulate fifty-something who likes his job. Howie is maybe 20, a dreamy young man who wants to be a writer. He has no real work, dividing his time between the car wash where he has a part-time job, his surf board and the family's hot tub, in which he does most of his writing.And therein lies the conflict which drives this story. Harry was brought up not to question the importance of working for a living. His inflexible blue-collar morality is offended by Howie's lazy, self-indulgent lifestyle. Howie, on the other hand, grew up in a climate where self-expression and leisure activities count for more than the humdrum business of earning a living.A medical condition forces Harry out of his job. Newman is impressive as the ageing, weakening man's man who is gutted by the loss of his livelihood, because to him it means the loss of his validity as a man. He sees Howie's vitality and intelligence and cannot come to terms with his son's lack of ambition. In one of their regular fights, Harry encapsulates the situation neatly. "I want a job and can't get one," he tells Howie. "You can, and don't."Bright and personable, if a little too pretty in the John Travolta way, Bobby Benson plays Howie with enthusiasm. The contrast between the dour widower and his cheerful, energetic son is nicely conveyed. Supporting the two central performances are Joanne Woodward as Lillie and Ellen Barkin (Katie). Lillie is a friend of the family who develops a 'thing' about Harry. Her daughter Katie is a girl of easy morals whose relationship with Howie rekindles after a break-up.Nice touches include the black screen at the very start which is shattered by Harry's wrecking ball, and the backlighting which gives Katie a 'halo' as she sets out her ethical position. I didn't like the too-convenient cheque which arrives from John Davidson or the ease with which secretary Sally can be suborned for sex. For me, Benson overacts horribly in the 'discovery' scene. Indeed, what happens to Harry is an unnecessarily dramatic event in this gentle, understated film.