Daddy Day Care, 2003

Daddy Day Care, 2003
Director: Steve Carr
Cast: Eddie Murphy, Jeff Garlin, Anjelica Houston

Stage: home TV selection, nice Wednesday evening






Daddy Day care in short: In the comedy Daddy Day Care, two fathers lose their jobs in product development at a large food company and are forced to take their sons out of the exclusive Chapman Academy and become stay-at-home fathers. With no job possibilities on the horizon, the two dads open their own day care facility, "Daddy Day Care", and employ some fairly unconventional and sidesplitting methods of caring for children.


Preps: I have seen this for several times now. It obviously comes every now and then again to the screen. As I am a huge fan of Eddie Murphy, it's almost a must see.

Reality: This is not one of Murphy's victories. I could claim it a sweet family movie, but unfortunately nothing more. It's not even close to Murphy's knees, speaking from a perspective, when a fan has seen most of his movies, his stand up's, his talk shows, etc. I believe he's one of the people that put a name to the comedy. Well, in this movie I have a good feeling that he just needed some money and luckily enough, loved the genre. He does create magic with children on screen. Nevertheless, he turns out a bigger clown he really is. So no real acting here, from none of the actors. But the expressions of the kids and their faces are more or less genuine, as they are so young.
The story itself is impressive and should serve as an example in times of recession. Losing a job might not be such a disaster, if you think about some niche or something you might be good at. You just as well may find yourself indulging this and loving it. As these characters did. The message of the story is great, if you look at it from growing kid's perspective. Putting a three year old to five different language courses, sporting lessons, violine, choir, etc.. well it might be an overload. Daddy day Care on the other hand makes things as they have once been at grandmothers or grandfather's day care. This means that childhood remains childhood. And that time with the kid is more important than career, making money to buyoff time you haven't spend with your child. A good story and a good moral at the end.


My personal rating: 5,0 ( see it for the message sake, not for a good movie sake. And Murphy has some brilliant moments. Apart from that, not worthy of your time..)


Daddy Day Care on IMDB