My Father the Hero Movie Download

10 / 10

Hilarious and sweet
Let’s get the weirdness out of the way: In My Father, the Hero, a fourteen-year-old girl goes on vacation with her dad and tells a boy she has a crush on that she’s there with her boyfriend instead. Yes, it’s very weird. Yes, it’s based off a foreign film. Now, let’s get over it and watch a hilarious movie.

Gérard Depardieu, star of the 1991 French original and the 1994 remake, is the father of Katherine Heigl. They have a strained relationship and he thinks a tropical vacation is just what they need to bond. However, once there, Katie gets a crush on a local boy, Dalton James, and pretends she has more experience than she has. When Gérard finds out what she’s done, he’s upset, but he goes along with her story. It’s quite a labor of love for him to support her, since he’s usually very protective. He follows her around with a towel when she prances around in a thong bathing suit, he scares off male admirers, and he tells her, “You cannot date a musician until all other men are dead.”

There are a couple of differences between the two versions, and both changes make me like the remake infinitely better. The daughter is only supposed to be fourteen years old, so there are times when she acts like a teenager and times when she acts like a little girl. Katie completely communicates her youth to the audience, which makes her lie and Gérard’s participation in it bearable. He’s playing a little game with his child, not actually taking a young adult’s sick lie seriously. He knows she has a harmless little crush and that refusing to help her will hurt her far more than any lasting consequences that might occur from backing up her story. In the original, Marie Gillain doesn’t ever act like a little girl.

This version is “Disney-ed up” quite a bit, because, let’s face it, it’s Disney! And with a premise this strange, the movie needs to be very funny and very clean. For example, when Katie confesses her lie to her father, he yells at her and still manages to rattle off some jokes. In the 1991 original, when Marie confesses her lie, he pours himself a stiff drink. In the remake, Katie insists on sleeping in the bedroom alone while her dad takes the couch, and she requests he not walk around in his underwear because she thinks he’s gross. In the original, not only do Marie and Gérard sleep in twin beds in the bedroom, but she changes her clothes right in front of him. It’s probably a cultural difference, but the change was necessary for American audiences. And, in perhaps the greatest difference of all, Katie is dreaming of a perfect first kiss, while the original shows Marie fooling around halfway through the movie. If you think she’s a little too young to be so eager for a first kiss, don’t even think about renting the original.

So, since you’re going to stick to the remake, you’re in for a very enjoyable evening. You’ll get to see Gérard sing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” to a crowd of displeased guests, and Katherine Heigl prance around in tons of adorable outfits. You’ll get to guess the voice of a mystery woman who constantly hides her face. And, you’ll get a lump in your throat when Gérard helps his little girl. Even though it’s weird, it’s still very sweet. He wears his heart on his sleeve and shows all the worry, love, and thankless sacrifice every parent can identify with. He makes this movie great. Well, he and Disney.Read More