I was initially immediately attracted to the prospect of this film based on the inclusion of Jackass luminary Chris Pontius. The tone of the opening made me think it was delivering exactly what I was hoping for. As an added bonus, the IMDB page promises both frontal and rear male nudity which is not something I will ever say no to under any circumstances.
Upon my first and final viewing of the film on the venerable HBO Max platform, I was immediately stricken with immeasurable disappointment in that skateboarding is not a central theme nor is it a major plot point. Despite being sold this false bill of goods, I pressed on in the interest of male nudity. The movie itself is very well acted. In particular, the performance of Chris Pontius was, in my opinion, some of the best if not THE BEST acting he has done in his career. Pedro Correa, as the lovable dirtbag Lucas Varela, was clearly drawing on his past experiences as a LA area landlord while portraying the character. I do not doubt the authenticity of his lived experiences as I too have had many landlords who were altogether terrible at maintaining their properties. There was a guy from Breaking Bad in there somewhere, or so I was later told, so that is worth mentioning.
Having a dead parent can often make you sad, but as this movie tells it, things are not that bad if you get to bang hot chicks with crippled limbs on the reg as I assume Lucas is want to do. They say we should never meet our heroes, and luckily for Lucas, he does not have to, and gets to know his titular dead father (who is not in fact named dad but something else altogether) through the tenants of the building who knew him prior to his passing. This is an interesting concept on its face, but the story seemed inauthentic at best despite the enthusiastic performances of the cast. Except for the landlord parts, those were all really good.
Unfortunately, not even the venerable Chris Pontius could save this dull prolonged road trip of a movie. The contrived plights of the building's tenants failed to move me and the lack of skateboarding content beyond occasional spurts was definitely to the film's detriment. At the end of the day, I watched this film with my 6 year old brother, and he did not seem to understand the weird world the characters seemed to find themselves in. It is rare that I agree with 6 year olds on anything, but My Dead Dad is a notable exception.
