Bland Dialogue In `My Father, The Hero' Creates Sense Of Deja Vu

Movie review

XX "My Father, the Hero," with Gerard Depardieu, Katherine Heigl, Dalton James, Emma Thompson. Directed by Steve Miner, from a script by Francis Veber and Charlie Peters. Alderwood, Aurora, Broadway Market, Everett Mall, Factoria, Gateway, Metro, Renton Village. "PG" - Parental guidance advised because of subject matter. -------------------------------------------------------------------

The plot of this Disney/Touchstone comedy resembles such creaky dinner-theater farces as "The Impossible Years" and "Take Her, She's Mine," which fortunately have gone the way of dinner theater.

An anxious father (Gerard Depardieu) takes his bratty, nubile 14-year-old daughter (Katherine Heigl) on a tropical vacation. He's shocked when she wears a revealing bathing suit on the beach. He's worried about her new independence. He becomes so possessive and protective that she can't stand to be around him, especially when she's dazzled by a 17-year-old hunk (Dalton James).

"You can't expect me to sleep in the same room with a strange man," Heigl says when she finds out there's a housing shortage at the resort.

"I'm not a strange man," says Depardieu. "I'm your father."

The script by veteran writers Charlie Peters ("Blame It on Rio") and Francis Veber ("La Cage Aux Folles") is full of repartee like that. Maybe there's just no way to freshen this particular formula.

The only new twist, borrowed from Gerard Lauzier's "Mon Pere,

Ce Heros," is that the daughter lures the hunk by telling him that her father is her lover. She successfully toys with the boy's jealousy and sense of outrage, though she doesn't count on the reaction of the rest of the resort community.

Dad, who isn't in on the ruse, is simply befuddled. He can't understand why he empties a room when he sits at the piano to sing "Thank Heaven For Little Girls."

Depardieu's charm and professionalism and the smooth direction by Steve Miner ("Forever Young") make up for many of the screenwriters' sins, and the supporting cast of white actors has some success skewering various boors, nerds and predatory divorcees on the loose at the resort. In the new Disney tradition ("Cool Runnings," "The Air Up There"), the nonwhites are treated more like exotic scenery than people.

Lauren Hutton appears briefly as Depardieu's ex-wife, and Emma Thompson plays a key role that functions much like Sean Connery's last-minute appearance in "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves."

"My Father the Hero" can be enjoyed as a travelogue (cinematographer Daryn Okada makes the Bahamas look especially seductive) and as the blandest, most nonthreatening kind of date movie. Heigl and James are attractive, even if they're not asked to do much more than look good. Heigl seems to sum up her character's entire range of interests by announcing, "I like to shop."