Sr. Review

Hard it is to swallow the intimacy of strangers, it is all Netflix can offer with much consistency as of now. Stutz provided Jonah Hill with a platform to showcase a relationship with a deeply personal part of his life and subsequently mull over some awful comedy hijinks in You People. Presuming that the star power of Robert Downey Jr. is enough to not just engage an audience but to keep them on the hook of interest for this nepotism documentary that employs Netflix frequenter Chris Smith for behind-the-camera work is the new course of entertainment. Now laced with tragedy and an easy line of defence after the passing of Robert Downey Sr., the documentary that pays tribute to the latter artist is seeped in that black-and-white hopefulness of latching onto ghoulish intent.

Downey Jr. is interested in the career of his father, and that is enough of a premise to be gifted a feature film. In the hands of the wrong people, anything can be said and stated in documentary formats. Downey Sr. was an undeniable presence in the underground movement but to paint him as a pioneer that laid the foundations, without backing that up with anything that confirms it. Shots of the older generation watching the footage of a Netflix goon who has captured some family snapshots in black and white is a grating depreciation of what is already an emotive experience for those that want to know more, for whatever reason, about the Downey family.

Why one would wish to outside of being too fascinated with the star power of an individual who has already been through the wringer in the public eye is difficult to comprehend. “We don’t have anything useable yet,” Jr. jokes to Sr. Much of Sr. jokes about having nothing but a concept at its core, and that is all it has. Never developing that feels like part of the record but wastes much of its time discussing the pursuit of an interesting angle, instead of spending its time with it. Undeniable the love may be between father and son and fundamental the message of it is, Sr. has a hard time doing anything that does not emotionally appeal to the concept of father and son making it in a business that is so cutthroat and unfortunate to so many. By the time Sr’s films are brushed over with the perspective of those from around the time, the focus has shifted to his son.

Netflix takes viewers into the lives of a family that have stamped their names into the glitzy stars of Hollywood, and the reasoning for it is still hard to understand. Sr. is keen to show the love between a father and a son but makes the fatal mistake of thinking that is enough to warrant an entire feature. Bordering on emotionally manipulative at times, as the frail Sr. is shown in his frail state for no other reason than to show the beginning of the end. Easy it may be to connect with these people in their earnest state, Sr. does not provide much of that, and if it does, it is brushed to one side to make way for sickly black-and-white footage that makes the recent past feel so far away. Shlocky in that perspective, it feels like a kick in the teeth to the earnestness that surely started this project.