Her career hobbled by uninspired material since the commercial bonanza of “Twilight’s” first screen installment 15 years ago, Catherine Hardwicke at first appears to be back on firmer terra with “Prisoner’s Daughter.” Its mix of adult dysfunction and coming-of-age pains against a downscale milieu (here working-class Las Vegas) recalls the director’s strong initial features, “Thirteen” and “Lords of Dogtown.”
But this drama, with Brian Cox as a terminally ill ex-con reunited with daughter Kate Beckinsale and her son, soon reveals itself as a formulaic contrivance heading towards predictable strife and tearjerking. Competently handled and well-cast, it’s nonetheless held back from generating much authentic emotion by the too-familiar beats of Mark Bacci’s script. Vertical is opening the feature, which premiered at TIFF last fall, on limited U.S. theatrical screens this Friday. It’ll doubtless do better in release to home formats, those dates as yet TBA.
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Once a criminal wild man who pretty much abandoned his only child to her late alcoholic mother, Max (Cox) has been incommunicado since entering prison on a murder conviction some years prior. So Maxine (Kate Beckinsale) is less than thrilled when he phones out of the blue — she has no idea that he is a very different man now, not only sober but a respected counselor to other inmates in recovery. Nor is she particularly sympathetic to learn that he has advanced pancreatic cancer, and will be allowed to spend his remaining months “outside” if she agrees to host him, albeit under house arrest with an ankle monitor.
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Things aren’t going so well for Maxine, however, so she’s willing to accept Max as a paying tenant: Her 12-year-old son Ezra (Christopher Convery), has medication needs for his epilepsy, and she family has no health insurance to speak of. Bills are piling up, opportunities scarce. Worse still, her crazy ex-boyfriend Tyler (Tyson Ritter) has just caused her to lose a restaurant job — showing up demanding to see his son, the volatile rock drummer/drug addict/squatter managed to punch her manager in the face before stomping out.
Maxine tells Ezra that Max is a previously-unmentioned uncle, though the kid doesn’t swallow that ruse for long. In any case, Max proves useful in more than just financial ways: He calls in favors from old associates to orchestrate home improvements, and gets boxing trainer Hank (Ernie Hudson) to teach some self-defense techniques to Ezra, who’s bullied at school. Looming mortality aside, things are finally looking up for all concerned — which is the cue, of course, for wrecking-ball Tyler to stir enough trouble that Gramps must finally go “Gran Torino” on the dirtbag.
These actors are more than capable, and all are doing their best, but “Prisoner’s Daughter” too often feels assembled from the spare parts of other movies, and their characters likewise feel second-hand. Max is so nice we can’t really grasp that he was ever a deadbeat-dad hellion, despite brief flashbacks to Maxine’s unhappy youth. Ezra is the kind of movie kid who never opens his mouth without something extra-precocious falling out, while Tyler is like a villain illustrating the virtue of “Just Say No” values in a vintage TV Afterschool Special.
Meanwhile, Hardwicke tries to lend a gritty edge to what’s ultimately a sentimental melodrama. But its preachy and simplistic sides win out, particularly when Beckinsale gets stuck with a hokey curtain speech. Nor are things redeemed by an occasional case of the cutes that in turn make several soundtracked songs from the excellent U.S. indie rock outfit Eels come off as twee posturing. It’s all smoothly crafted enough to go down painlessly. But given the talent involved, you’d hope for more genuine toughness and poignancy than “Prisoner’s Daughter” is able to provide.