By NEIL HARVEY
THE ROANOKE TIMES

Archives Reprint

   After spending most of the last week helplessly glued to VH-1's strangely mesmerizing nostalgia show, "I Love the '70's" (which seems to be running on a continual loop), I was in the perfect frame of mind for "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star."

    In the movie's title role, David Spade plays an actor who once starred on a "Brady Bunch"-like sitcom but whose career has long since dried up.

    At 35, Dickie is broke and bitter, working as a valet parker and hanging out with a gaggle of real-life former child stars including Leif Garrett, Corey Feldman and Danny Bonaduce.

    Bad company, indeed, but a ray of hope

   emerges. He stumbles into an audition for director Rob Reiner, who feels Dickie's ambition and failures have made him too cynical to be a genuine actor. So, in order to find his lost innocence (and get a part), Dickie decides to hire a "normal" family to treat him like a child. Why not?

    OK, so it's not exactly a reasonable solution, but it does offer Spade's sarcastic, prima donna character a chance to plop down in the middle of a suburban family and create havoc while getting injured in amusing, slapstick fashion.

    He bugs the neighbors, gets wheeled around in a stroller and crashes through picket fences.

    Sounds like fun to me. And "Dickie Roberts" would've been a lot more fun if it had stuck with Spade's snide remarks and pratfalls.

    But about halfway through, the tone gets strangely sincere and corny. Comedies in which parents allow a strange adult to share a bedroom with their two pre-teens really shouldn't shift gears dramatically and start handing out sugar-flavored morals.

    There's nothing wrong with a story about a bad guy who changes for the better, but Dickie's transformation from lout to sweetheart is phonier than the plot of an old "Partridge Family" episode.

    Still, there are some decent gags here and there - and the opening scene, in which Spade gets whipped in a celebrity boxing match by four-foot, six-inch Emmanuel Lewis, is seriously funny. But, like its main character, "Dickie Roberts" peaks early.

    Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star

    HH 1/2

    At Carmike 10 at Tanglewood Mall and Valley View Grande 16. Rated PG-13 for crude and sex-related humor, language and drug references. One hour, 39 minutes.

   HH 1/2

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