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In 1990, David Spade burst into the limelight on the stages of "Saturday Night Live." Ever since, he has been assaulting the public with a relentless kind of non-humor - Spade's newest film, "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star," is merely his latest instrument of assault.
Dickie Roberts (David Spade) is a washed-up child star who now works as a valet and has developed a disorder that requires him to wear gloves all of the time. Trapped in a limbo of celebrity boxing appearances and poker games with other former child stars, Dickie is ready to burst back onto the celebrity scene.
Dickie enlists the aid of his agent Sidney (Jon Lovitz) to get an audition for a new Rob Reiner film, but upon speaking to Reiner, Dickie is told that he's so deranged that the only way he could possibly become a normal member of society would be to relive his childhood. Taking this advice to heart, Dickie hires a stereotypical nuclear family to help him become normal.
"Dickie Roberts" revolves around two themes with both a feel-good life lesson and a comical one. In doing this, the film is taking what little it has going for it and spreading it too thinly across the two genres.
"Billy Madison" is a similar film that concentrated greatly on the comedic aspect of an ultimately feel-good plotline. While "Billy Madison" is certainly not a stellar film, it does a much better job than "Dickie Roberts" of portraying an adult reliving an element of childhood. Incidentally, "Billy Madison" star Adam Sandler also produced "Dickie Roberts."
While the concept of a former child star coming back from ridicule is a potentially amusing one, it is as if the screenwriters and producers ended their brainstorming session there. Aside from a few amusing moments, that are largely composed of David Spade getting bashed in the head, the film offers little in the way of genuine entertainment. In fact, for a film that is completely about character development at its core, "Dickie Roberts" fails to create dynamic characters.
To use a catchphrase commonly uttered by Dickie, the people in Hollywood are "nucking futs" for giving David Spade starring roles. While not unbearable, watching Spade's delivery while enduring a series of extremely flat characters simply isn't an enjoyable experience.
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