My Father the Hero (1994)

Nicole (Katherine Heigl) is a 15 year old living with her divorced mother in Manhattan. She is forced to go on vacation with her French father Andre (Gérard Depardieu). She insists on calling him Andre. She hates being in an old people's resort in The Bahamas. She falls for local Ben (Dalton James). To make herself look more mature, she tells him that she's 16 and a secret mistress to Andre while pretending to be his daughter. A rumor of their disturbing relationship soon spreads throughout the resort. Nicole keeps adding to her tall tale.Katherine Heigl started to be hot as an underage teen. Sometimes that got played up in her early movies. This one shines a bright spotlight on the issue. Dalton James looks a lot older than his character who is suppose to be 17. The whole underage issue is awkward and keeps any comedy from being funny. Gérard Depardieu may be funny to the French but he is not that funny in English. There is no way his flailing around could overcome the movie's inherent awkwardness. When he starts going with the lie, it turns from bad to annoyingly stupid.

This movie is a funny comedy about a father and daughter vacationing at some tropical island,where the daughter falls for some boy and trying to pass for what she thinks is "cool",she makes up a preposterous story about her father. I read some of the negative comments,i think those people didn't get the main point of this movie,that exactly because the lie is so preposterous,all the situations are so funny. Besides the funny situations ,the movie has a few nice points to make,that young people often lie to appear "cool" but the only cool thing of course is to be who you are.Then,also it makes a nice point even though its exaggerated of course,what hardships good parents have to go through for their children's happiness.Also,that parents ,sometimes can also learn from their kids about their own life. Depardieu is great in this,and Heigl is also good.i don't agree that there is a huge difference between this version and the French one. In the French one,Depardieu has naturally some more facility with the language but he does a good job in English,also the American version has better production values than the french one and has some extra jokes about what Americans think about the French stereotype,which are funny and don't exist in the French version.

MY Father the hero is sweet, funny and cute. Gerard Depardiu is awesome as Andre, a divorced father who takes his fourteen year old daughter Nicole(Kathrine Heigl) to the Caribbean for vacation.While there, his daughter meets a guy named Ben(Dalton James. To impress him, she tells him that Andre is her lover and that her father is in jail for armed robbery and her mother is a prostitute and that she ran off with her pimp. Everyone on the island is soon under the impression that Andre's a child molester. Andre is between two relationships. One with Isabelle(Emma Thompson, who makes a cameo in the end of the film) and Diana(Faith Prince from Spin City). My father the Hero has many funny moments. Like when he's at a talent show and everyone tells him to play something french. So he plays "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" from Gigi. Everyone gets disgusted and leaves. My Father the Hero doesn't deserve a 5.1. I think it deserves a 9.0.

I have a problem with the movie snobs who consider Americans to be uncouth semi - literates unable to appreciate the subtlety of the more sophisticated Europeans,les Francais,les Italiens...just about anybody from le continong to whom English is a foreign language.If the humour in "My Father the Hero" is different from that in "Mon Pere ce heros" it is because the French sense of humour is different from that of the American.Not better,not "more clever",just different. If you think it is crass for Hollywood to "borrow" from the French cinema just consider how much the French cinema has borrowed from Hollywood in the first place.Where would Belmondo and Delon have been without Bogart?Truffaut without Hitchcock?Jerry Lewis - not known for his subtle and cerebral style is idolised in France.Go figure........ Monsieur Depardieu is exceptionally good as the hapless divorced father of a precocious 14 year old daughter on holiday in the Bahamas together. Unbeknowst to him,she presents him to the other people at the hotel as her lover so as to make herself more interesting to a boy she has her eye on .Not surprisingly,complications ensue. There are "hommages" to "Green Card" and "Cyrano de Bergerac" amusingly inserted and M.Depardieu goes along with it all very good - naturedly. He does a good Maurice Chevaler impression with "Thank Heaven for little girls" which is in fact funny and rather poignant as his audience,all of whom believe him to be the lover of a 14 year old girl,get up and leave two - by - two as he warbles away,blissfully unaware of what is happening.When he turns round at the end of the song to acknowledge the expected applause the expression on his face is priceless. Without him the movie would be very average indeed.With his huge shambling figure dominating the screen it is a lot of fun.No pecs,no six pack - just a real proper human - type being.Formidable!