Come to Daddy (2019)

(On Cable TV, May 2020) Black comedy thrillers are always a gamble—fall on the right side of the audience’s expectations, and they’ll love you for life. Fall on the bad side and, well, audiences won’t be happy just not caring about a film—they will take pleasure in hating it. Come to Daddy did not fall on my right side. The biggest problem comes early—I disliked the protagonist on sight, and hated him even more over time. There’s nothing wrong with Elijah Wood’s performance in the lead role here—it’s just that his character is written to be pathetic, and made up to look like an insufferable hipster. But protagonist sympathy is key in a thriller—if the audience isn’t on their side, then nothing else matters. As Come to Daddy’s twists and turns accumulate, they increasingly look like meaningless fillips: For an exploitation movie built on surprises and shocking violence, it all becomes empty nonsense. I’m pretty sure that with another character (or maybe just a different haircut), I would have liked Come to Daddy a lot more. But right now? No way.