I'll admit that I still like Robert De Niro. I just don't like the movies he's done in the last decade. It could be argued that the last great movie he was in was Jackie Brown. It almost seems like since the mid 1990's he's just been in it for a paycheck. Did the actor that could play anybody die when he started doing Ben Stiller movies? We can't quite close the book on him yet. Everybody's Fine gives us a small glimmer that the De Niro of old could still be lurking in the body that gave us the villain in Rocky and Bullwinkle. It is just a small glimmer, though.The film is about Frank Goode (De Niro), a widower who has great hopes to bring his family all back together for a little reunion only to be dashed when everyone cancels out on him at the last minute. So he decides to travel the country seeing all of his kids (Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell, and Drew Barrymore). The problem that occurs is that as he arrives at each destination the illusion that the kids and his deceased wife put up for him is shattered by the reality of what his kids lives are really like.
Going back to De Niro, he's still there somewhere, though the source material isn't much to work with at all. The script is your typical "moment of clarity bad father" stuff that Lifetime TV is filled with. The three kids are great actors, but can't really hold a candle to De Niro's chops and fall behind as he becomes Frank Goode. Basic, average, almost dull. At the end of the day this becomes another movie you watched and forgot about, never to be seen again except on cable TV while flipping around. This is another example of a great actor in a below average/almost mediocre movie. You'll watch it for who's in it and then not care the next day.
