MAX DUGAN RETURNS

Every riven family should have this dilemma: 30 years after deserting you, Dad shows up on your stoop with six months to live and $687,000 in cash to buy his way back into your affections. This latest in Neil Simon's fantasies of generation-gap bridgework runs mainly on charm, not on the bile and bathos that fueled Only When I Laugh and I Ought to Be in Pictures. Jason Robards, the errant father, is as resourcefully genial as a Damon Runyon Santa Claus; Donald Sutherland keeps his dimples flexed playing a policeman who demonstrates his love of literature by misquoting the opening line of Joyce's Ulysses; even veteran Simonizers Marsha Mason and Director Herbert Ross find ways to relax into the material. What the movie lacks is a compelling reason for having been made. Such are the dangers of charm. Winsome, lose some. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.