MOVIE REVIEW - After years of maddening "Blame it all on Daddy" films, "Delivery Man" sends a refreshing, upbeat message that Dads are important, and children of all ages have a natural, God-given need to know their dads.
While the culture celebrates scientific and social developments that allow two persons of the same sex to parent children, no science nor social change will make it possible to produce human life apart from the miracle of conception, the result of one female and one male human cell merging into one.
It's about time Hollywood extol the manly virtues of responsible fathering.
"Everyone has a purpose in life, I guess I just haven't found mine," David Wozniak, the Delivery Man, says, just before he learns a life-changing truth that the donations he made to a sperm bank twenty years ago made him the father of over 500 children.
New York sophisticates are panning Vince Vaughn's starring role as curiosity drives Wozniak to find the children he anonymously fathered. One by one, he becomes emotionally attached to them as he realizes the vacuum each of them have in their lives because their father wasn't involved.
During his journey finding out about the children he helped bring into the world, Wozniak learns the value of his own father in his life and realizes his purpose and need to be a part of his own children's lives.
The story line is sentimental and heart-warming. It is troubling that film critics have reacted so bitterly to "Delivery Man" when they wildly applaud adolescent, irresponsible male role modeling in "Animal House," "Wedding Crashers" and the "Hangout" movies antics.
Indeed, "Delivery Man" may cause men who've emotionally or physically abandoned their children to suffer guilt pains any normal male should feel when they're reminded what they missed by neglecting or rejecting the children they helped produce. The film may also be rejected by film critics whose relationships with their own fathers have been disappointing.
On the other hand, perhaps Vince Vaughn and the makers of "Delivery Man" will challenge men who've fathered offspring to fill their own deepest needs by investing in their children and families.
Ignore the cold-blooded New York critics - who probably have a secondary axe to grind with Vaughn because he's declared he's a conservative - and go see "Delivery Man." Leave the kids at home - this movie is for real men and women. Expect soul-searching, introspective conversations afterwards.
