Showtimes & Tickets Enter Zip Code:

HAROLD
Directed by T. Sean Shannon
Produced by William Sherak, Jason Shuman, Cuba Gooding Jr. & Morris S. Levy
Written by Shannon & Greg Fields
Released by City Lights Pictures
USA. 105 min. Rated PG-13
With Spencer Breslin, Ally Sheedy, Nikki Blonsky, Stella Maeve, Chris Parnell, Rachel Dratch, Colin Quinn, Suzanne Shepherd & Cuba Gooding Jr.

Mel Brooks once said that the difference between tragedy and comedy is the contrast between cutting your finger and falling through an open manhole cover. The essential problem at the core of Harold, the first film directed by Saturday Night Live writer T. Sean Shannon, is that he centers the film on a one-note joke that is a misfortune: 13-year-old Harold (Spencer Breslin) has male-pattern baldness. There's no explanation why, not even like something out of Francis Ford Coppola's stinker Jack—just it "runs in the family." Oy vey.

Only George Costanza on Seinfeld and Larry David as himself on Curb Your Enthusiasm (both almost the same character) have been able to ever get any solid comedy out of being bald.  But Shannon and his co-writer think it's hysterical, even though they stretch this one-note joke to incredibly implausible, mind-boggling lengths. 

Harold is, apparently, a peculiar bird. Aside from being generally nerdy and standoffish, he loves Matlock and Murder She Wrote, and the running gag is that people think he's in his forties. So he can buy beer or have sex with really old women who think he's hot, or even go to strip clubs. Suzanne Shepherd (who played Lorraine Bracco's mother in Goodfellas) plays an old floozie who wants some hot lovin’ with Harold, and her scene, like many, falls flat as a stone after five seconds. Everyone seems to have to do a double take, realizing… HE'S 13!

Harold's moves from one town with his twerpy sister to another thanks to his inattentive single mom (Alley Sheedy). Again living in a new town, he’s surrounded by bullies in high school. Aside from a bubbly, overweight friend (Nikki Blonksy), the only respite is the school janitor Cromer (Cuba Gooding Jr.), who once was a school bully himself but now gives the kind of sage advice that bums might give out for a quarter. 

The film has one of the dumbest premises I've come across in recent memory, and it's stretched out with a plot that is so incredulous that it took every ounce of energy for me to stay in my seat and not flee toward the exit sign. The director has basically extended an SNL skit with atrocious dialog and characters who aren't even one-note; maybe .5 note would be more accurate. No bad joke goes unturned, which is a tragedy unto itself. And did I mention that Cuba Gooding Jr. is in it? Jack Gattanella
July 11, 2008