Tuesday, July 27, 2021

WHO IN THE WORLD THOUGHT CLIFFORD WAS A GOOD IDEA?

 In Clifford, Martin Short plays the titular 10 year old holy terror who manages to finagle his way into a stay with his uncle Martin (Charles Grodin) in the hopes the man will take him to Dinosaur World. When uncle Martin promises to do so, only to renege after Clifford embarrasses him at work, the 10 year old sets about methodically destroying Martin's life. There's also a creepy romantic subplot surrounding Sara Davis (Mary Steenburgen), Martin's girlfriend whom Clifford also has an intense crush on.

Yeah, this film is weird. It's centered around the idea of Martin Short playing a psychopathic self-centered 10 year old, and Short is unhinged here (Whether or not that's a good thing is up to you). His Clifford is never remotely likable. I will say the oddness of having Martin Short portray a 10 year old definitely had me laughing at times, though.

Charles Grodin is actually kind of great as the slowly unraveling and much tortured Martin. Short and him work off of each other fairly well, and it's a kind of schadenfreude watching things progressively get worse for Martin. It's not hard to share Martin's hatred of Clifford well before the end credits roll. Mary Steenburgen is given very little to do except be the dumb but kind girlfriend. Richard Kind also makes a fantastic cameo as Clifford's long suffering father. His reactions to Clifford's antics are hysterical.

Clifford was billed as a kids/family film, but in reality it's very dark, mean, sexual, and odd. I'm not sure who thought this was a good idea, but I'm glad they put it on screen. A film this weird, bonkers, and wrong doesn't come around too often, making Clifford a true treat for any lover of bad film. Complete with a book-end sequence that doesn't quite gel with the rest of the film, a surprisingly fantastic message (That doesn't exactly feel like it belongs here), and a very game cast, Clifford stands out as a memorably bad movie (One that I would love to read a tell-all book about).

1.5 STARS

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