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A curmudgeonly man is mistakenly told that he has 90 minutes to live by his doctor and promptly sets out to reconcile with his wife, brother and friends in the short time he believes he has left.
Robin Williams is that rare actor that can make a bad movie watchable as he has an onscreen presence that not many Hollywood stars possess. I love director Phil Alden Robinson’s 1992 movie “Sneakers”, which starred Robert Redford and Ben Kingsley and is one of the best and most inventive spy movies ever made. When I got the opportunity to watch their latest collaboration, “The Angriest Man in Brooklyn”, I jumped at the chance but regrettably, I walked away from it very underwhelmed and disillusioned. Mr. Williams plays Henry Altmann, a Brooklyn attorney who is always angry. Everything upsets him, newborn babies, cab drivers, loud music, you name it and it’s probably on his ‘hate’ list.
When Henry arrives at the hospital for a follow-up with his doctor (a surprise cameo from Louis C.K.), he is beyond angry to find out that he left early for the weekend and that he will be seen instead by Dr. Sharon Gill (Mila Kunis), a temporary replacement. As she tries to deliver to him, the results of his latest head X-ray, Henry is so outraged that he starts belittling her and insults her repeatedly. She finally manages to tell him that he has a brain aneurism at which point he demands to know how long he has left to live. When she tells him that she doesn’t know, he continues berating her whereupon she blurts out 90 minutes, much to his surprise.
Henry spends the rest of the movie racing around Brooklyn, trying to rectify the wrongs in his life, striving to reconnect with his estranged wife and son, the only family he has left in his life who he has managed to push away ever since the death of his eldest son a few years prior. Meanwhile, Sharon feels guilty for what she said to him and sprints around town, trying desperately to locate him so she can tell him the truth. The problem with “The Angriest Man in Brooklyn” is that it’s not very good. Although billed as a comedy/drama, there is very little of the former and way too much of the latter.
We get that he is angry, all the time but after a few funny quips and one-liners at the begging of the movie, it becomes old, very quickly. We are expected to care about a man who, for most of the movie, gives the appearance that what he’s doing, he’s doing because he thinks it’s the right thing to do, not because it is the right thing to do. For the first time I can recall, comedy and humor, something which has always been second nature to Mr. Williams, here seems forced and contrived. He has high expectations and hopes that his son Tommy (Hamish Linklater), will join his firm but when Tommy expresses an interest in becoming a dancer instead, Henry explodes and begins insulting him. Apparently, when it comes to Henry, you are not allowed to live your life unless it’s Henry’s way.
In one scene, after Henry jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge in an apparent suicide attempt, he survives the fall, only to realize that he’s been an asshole all these years. In a scene that should have been moving and emotional, where he meets Tommy at his dance studio and asks to dance with him one last time, just like they did when Tommy was a kid, it feels artificial and totally unnatural. I found Henry’s anger to be more of a plot device to help advance the movie and to also give Mr. Williams bountiful opportunities to shout and scream supposed humorous obscenities at anybody within reach. By the time the end of the movie comes around, you actually wish that Dr. Gill got her estimated 90 minute diagnosis incorrect and that Henry would just drop dead already so the final credits could start to roll.
In theaters May 23rd
