Still reeling from the loss of his mother (Julianne Moore), a struggling young writer (Paul Dano) makes contact with his megalomaniacal, ne'er-do-well father (Robert De Niro), loses touch once more, and then reacquaints himself with the old codger while volunteering at a homeless shelter. While watching "Being Flynn", before seeing his excellent turn in "Silver Linings Playbook", I jotted in my notes "De Niro can hardly do anything to diminish his status as an icon of the cinema but at this stage, does he really have anything to add to it beside self-parody?" While I have been since proved wrong in that short amount of time, it is still true of this film (and a lot of the drivel he has been in over the last fifteen years) that he has resorted to cheap riffs of his iconic characters and personages. Paul Weitz's film is seriously misguided, features an uninvolving performance from Dano, and gains very little from its untarnishable, legendary star.
