Helicopter Mom

The writing felt like this could have been a script written by a non-film major in a screenwriting class at a local community college. It is riddled with some of the worst dialogue I have ever heard in a film. And then you have Nia Vardolos; she was so over-the-top that one has to wonder if she was binging on drugs or alcohol during the filming of this. I was in utter disbelief at how bad and rotorless this film was.

Hands down, one of the worst flicks ever. Nia Vardolos is a gifted writer and actress and I adored her in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." But someone steered her wrong in "Helicopter Mom."

Overview: Financially pressed single mom Maggie has some reason to wonder about her son's sexual identity. A sensitive type boy who hasn't had a relationship despite being pursued by girls at his school, especially pretty cheerleader Carrie, the boy finds himself attracted to both boys and girls. Maggie assumes he's gay and attempts to set him up with various males. She takes it upon herself to submit an application for him for a gay student college scholarship, forcing her son to play along with the deceit. From there it just keeps getting dumber.

This is worst than a bad sitcom. It's offensive, relies on poor stereotype jokes, and Nia is simply not her best in this. This flick is beyond idiotic!

Helicopter Mom is idiotic, annoying, patently unfunny, and blatantly homophobic. It is in many ways a film from a different and far worse era. Head-to-toe it plays like a lackluster piece of late-90s teen sit-com drek. The film isn't even remotely relevant and it overflows with dated references. Then there is the issue of the film's central plot: that a mother would be so aggressively separated from reality to determine that her son is gay before he has even reached a conclusion. It is ridiculous and disgustingly offensive. At every turn it simplifies a whole crop of people, defining them by nothing more than who they love, and aggressively stereotyping them along the way. As if this weren't enough to stop watching, it then cripples its characters with dialogue that is unrealistic and clumsy.

There are so many elements of Helicopter Mom that make it a failure. It is a lazily shot made- for-TV movie that certainly won't find an audience with any demographic. The script is written with the skill of a second-grader with no sense of character knowledge, spinning about with a dizzying amount of unmotivated character shifts. There is no consistency to anything and large sections of the film are absolutely incoherent.

The film is so mired in a quagmire of sub-mediocre drivel that it can be considered nothing but forgettable. The best thing that can be said about Helicopter Mom is there's an ending, unfortunately it comes ninety minutes too late.

Nearly everything about this movie looks like it was made by 2nd graders.

Starting with the obvious, the script is incoherent, unoriginal, unfunny and vacuous.

The person who directed this clearly was grasping at straws, and to allow the lead character to act so way over-the-top showed very little skill of the craft.

The acting by everyone (except the father) was a joke. It looked like bad dinner theater acting.

The sound was not good and uneven. Some parts of the film were inaudible and the dialogue lost. How do you let that happen (unless, of course you're a 2nd grader)?

I'm assuming this film was shot for 40-50k by film students in an attempt to raise money to try and make something bigger. However, I highly doubt this effort by those involved will lead to anything other than than an unemployment check or a job offer at Dunkin Donuts serving up flavors of the day.

THIS is what you call AMATEUR HOUR.

My first question is, who was the genius producer who read this material and thought it would be a good idea to make this a film? That person is either extremely ignorant, illiterate, or both. My second question is, has Nia Vardalos' career taken such a dive that she is now forced to take acting jobs in D-level movies like this crap? I turned this thing off after forty minutes (which was forty minutes too long) because it was completely and utterly unwatchable. It's not funny, the dialogue is unbearable, the acting is worst than community theatre level, and the entire film looks like the budget was $20,000. Everything about this film reeks of amateurism. It's a complete joke! Who in their right mind sets out to make nonsense like this??

I won't carry on further about this turd of a film other than to say don't waster your precious time or money!