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STARBUCK – The Review – We Are Movie Geeks

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STARBUCK – The Review

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STARBUCK is a likeable comedy based on the premise that your past can catch up to you in unexpected ways. It tells the story of David Wozniak (Patrick Huard), an immature 42-year-old adolescent with no ambition, a pregnant girlfriend, and a choice collection of vintage American T-Shirts. With $80,000 in gambling debt and a career as a delivery driver for his dad’s meat company, a job he’s not even very good at, David has good reason to believe he might not be the best candidate for fatherhood. The story begins when David is told that all those donations he’d made two decades earlier to his local sperm bank have resulted in 533 live births and now 142 of those offspring have filed class-action to have the man responsible for their existence identified. He’s currently known only by the pseudonym he provided at the clinic: Starbuck. David gets files on these offspring and begins shadowing them, determined to become their guardian angel. One is a soccer star. Another is gay. He swims at a pool one is lifeguarding and fills in for one as a waiter so the kid can make his play audition.

The premise is fertile ground for a high concept, feel-good Hollywood comedy, and STARBUCK plays like one, but it’s a French language Canadian film shot in Quebec, and has been a huge hit there. It’s already been made remade for Hollywood (already in the can, DELIVERY MAN stars Vince Vaughn – once titled the much better DICKIE DONOR) but I recommend going ahead and seeing this original version. It’s good.

The many scenes where David anonymously drops in on his brood are the best part of STARBUCK and elevate the film into something more than fatherhood gags and masturbation jokes. STARBUCK is from writer/director Ken Scott, who maintains a healthy momentum, pumping chuckles and well-timed sight gags into the film skillfully. STARBUCK is full of good intentions but when David accidentally finds himself in the middle of a meeting for the class action targeting him, the story goes in a more serious direction. He visits a nursing facility where one of his progeny is severely disabled and when he pretends to be the legal guardian of his disabled son in order to spend more time with his children without giving away his identity, his deception becomes less endearing.  His story begins generating massive media attention.  “Who is Starbuck? – La Masterbatur!”’ the headlines scream and David soon wonders if this lawsuit could be the solution to his problems.

Much of Starbuck’s success can be attributed to the lead performance from Patrick Huard who strikes the perfect balance between likable loser, irresponsible jerk, and just a troubled fellow trying to do the right thing. STARBUCK carefully straddles a thin line between poignant and maudlin. Some coincidences are ridiculous, like one where David poses as a pizza delivery man to meet a daughter and arrives just as she’s overdosing (she’s about to shoot up – why does she order a pizza? Does heroin give you the munchies?), and the subplot involving David owing money to strong-arm goons is unnecessary and unresolved. A speech about David unfairly favoring his unborn child over his fertility clinic progeny reveals a dumb misunderstanding of the purpose of sperm banks, and the climax featuring the largest group hug in movie history is an eye-roller, but STARBUCK has such a big heart, it’s easy to forgive its flaws.

4 of 5 Stars

STARBUCK opens in St. Louis May 3rd at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Theater

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