Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

$5 a Day Blu-ray Movie Review

Kidding a Kidder's Kid

Reviewed by Michael Reuben May 26, 2012

Road trips and swindlers are both staples of American pop culture, and they go well together. Mark Twain had Huck Finn pull more than a few scams on his travels along the Mississippi, and for good measure he threw in some traditional con men in the persons of the Duke and the Dauphin. $5 a Day varies the formula by putting a father and son, estranged now but former partners in "short" cons, behind the wheel of an auto traveling Route 66 from Atlantic City to Albequerque. The father says he needs the son's help, because he's dying of a brain tumor, and a clinic in New Mexico has an experimental treatment that might help. The son doesn't believe him, and neither do we, because the father is played by Christopher Walken—and with Walken, you never know.

The script by Neal and Tippi Dobrosky took five years to get made, and several directors came and went during that time. The one who stuck was British filmmaker Nigel Cole, whose talent with offbeat stories produced the marijuana comedy Saving Grace (featuring Craig Ferguson before he became a fixture on late-night TV), the successful Calendar Girls (starring Helen Mirren) and the recent critical favorite Made in Dagenham. $5 a Day is one of two American films that Cole has made to date (the other is 2005's A Lot Like Love), and it reflects a genuine appreciation for the texture of mundane Americana. Sometimes it takes an outsider to really show you your own country.

As Cole acknowledges in the interview on this disc, Walken's attachment gave him a great advantage in casting the rest of the picture, because everyone wants to work with Walken. For a long time, Cole said he wanted "a Sharon Stone type" to play the small but pivotal role of Dolores, the former babysitter to the son whose connection to both generations is full of unresolved emotion (think Crazy Stupid Love, but a lot older and much crazier). Eventually Cole realized that there was no such "type", only Stone herself, and when she heard she'd be working with Walken, she said yes immediately. (Their scenes are hilarious.)

The lead role of the exasperated son was reportedly once assigned to Sam Rockwell, but ended up being played by Alessandro Nivola, who is one of those actors who's so good that no one recognizes him from role to role. Still best known for his work as Pollux Troy, the fey younger brother of Nicolas Cage in Face/Off, Nivola thoroughly transforms his speech, posture, demeanor and attitude for each part such that he becomes someone else. In $5 a Day, he becomes someone whose entire life is defined by lies, because he's the offspring of a father who is always working an angle, even on the rare occasion when he happens to be telling the truth.

Ritchie Flynn (Nivola) gets fired from his job as a restaurant inspector in Los Angeles, when his boss discovers that he omitted his time in prison from his job application. (The exact circumstances of his incarceration aren't revealed until later in the film, but it involved one of his dad's con schemes.) Flynn returns home to his girlfriend, Maggie (Amanda Peet), who is packing to move out of their apartment. She's tired of Flynn's lies, starting with his name (he's been using "Flynn" as a first name). Also, she's just taken a call from the father he'd told her was dead. He says he's dying.

Flynn doesn't believe his father's story for a minute, but with his life already in shambles, he accepts the voucher for a plane ticket that has arrived in the mail and flies to Atlantic City, where Nat (Walken) lives in a chaotic hole-in-the-wall under the famed Steel Pier. Nat has perfected working the system into an art form, milking every freebie, promotional giveaway and contest to the max, and then some. Nat boasts that his actual cash outlay is down to less than $5 a day.

Nat shows Flynn an X-ray of an inoperable brain tumor and says a New Mexico clinic will admit him to a trial program for a new treatment at no charge, but he has to get there himself. He can't fly, because pressure changes are risky, and he can't drive, because his vision is affected; so he needs his son to drive him—in a garishly pink Sweet 'n' Low promotional vehicle provided by the company at no charge, gas included. They'll eat at International Houses of Pancakes (IHOP), where the meal is free on your birthday and Nat has a fake ID for every day of the year. And Nat has booked "five star" places for them to stay; the first one is a luxury home that's vacant and for sale.

Flynn doesn't want to go, but he feels irresistibly sucked in, as people often do with family. As father and son zig-zag across the country, they bicker, reminisce, recriminate, share regrets and ultimately confess a few secrets. They're also forced to resume their old partnership on occasion. One such moment occurs when Nat crashes a pharmaceutical company convention at a Howard Johnson's Hotel by pretending to be a legitimate attendee. After befriending a top salesman, Rick Carlson (Dean Cain), Nat senses a rift in the Carlson marriage, and as he shimmies on the dance floor with the very attractive Mrs. Carlson (Bridget White), Rick gathers a lynch mob. Only Nat's last-minute intervention with a brazen cover story spares Nat a thrashing. (And why does Nat flirt with Mrs. Carlson? Because he can.)

A high point of their trip is their layover (literally) with Dolores Jones (Stone), who used to babysit for Flynn. Older now, but still very much in her prime, Dolores has matured into a scammer in her own right, as Flynn discovers when they go out for a drink and she sets up the bar for a personal injury suit. Nat knows his son had a crush on his babysitter (what boy wouldn't when she looks like that?), and he hopes their visit will be good for Flynn. But Dolores has other plans.

As the pair nears Albequerque, talk turns to Nat's old partner, Burt Kruger (Peter Coyote), who started as a used car salesman (an alternate form of scammer) and now owns a string of Cadillac dealerships throughout the southwest. He was also the man for whom Flynn's late mother left Nat many years ago. And guess where he lives now? Flynn begins to suspect that this trip is more about settling old scores than medical treatment, and he isn't entirely wrong, but there's more at stake than he knows. When events spiral out of control, Flynn has nowhere to turn other than Maggie, for whom he's been leaving long messages on the answering machine in their apartment, reporting on the trip and telling the truth about his life, not knowing whether Maggie's hearing them as she finishes packing and moving out. But Maggie has been listening, and she agrees to help. If nothing else, she's curious to make the acquaintance of this new person she's never met before.

$5 a Day Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shot on film by Peter Donahue (The Fog of War) and finished on a digital intermediate, $5 a Day has been released on Blu-ray by Image Entertainment after a limited theatrical run in a 1080p, AVC-encoded presentation that is subtly terrific. I say "subtly", because there aren't any scenes in the film that "pop" with bright colors and stark contrasts. This is an everyday world shot in real locations like IHOP and Chevron stations, and it's not by coincidence that the cinematographer is best known for his work on documentaries. The unobtrusive camera style and muted color scheme (with a few exceptions such as Nat's car and Dolores' tacky decor and wardrobe) are essential to the film's world, and the Blu-ray renders these faithfully. Black levels and contrast are very good, as is the level of detail within the frame. Look around Nat's lair in Atlantic City, and you can make out all manner of items in the detritus of his life. A fine pattern of natural-looking film grain is readily evident, but unless you're the kind of viewer who objects to the visual texture of film, it shouldn't interfere with your viewing. There were no signs of invasive digital tampering, such as high frequency filtering or artificial sharpening, nor were there any compression artifacts.

$5 a Day Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track for $5 a Day doesn't have any showy, "demo" passages, but it has a lot of subtle surround effects, if you're paying attention. Early in their cross-country drive, Nat and Flynn make the first of many stops at an IHOP, and as they sit in their booth sparring, you can hear the clink of glasses and flatware on plates all around them. The soundtrack is full of such subtle ambiance, whether it's the sounds of the Steel Pier above Nat's digs in Atlantic City or the party/political rally that the Parkers crash at Kruger's home. Dialogue is clear, and the score by Alex Wurman, whose eclectic resume extends from Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy to HBO's recent Temple Grandin, is well represented. The soundtrack also includes several distinctively off-beat songs, notably "I Don't Mind" by Marcus Foster, which plays at the beginning and end. Director Cole reportedly wanted the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want", but the cost was prohibitive.

$5 a Day Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interviews (SD; 1.33:1; 35:09): The longest interview is with director Cole, but all of them are informative.
• Nigel Cole
• Alessandro Nivola
• Sharon Stone
• Dean Cain
• Peter Coyote
• Amanda Peet


• Still Galleries (HD, 1080p; various): Each gallery contains only a small group of photographs, but they're good quality.
• Photo Gallery
• Production Stills
• Cast and Crew


• Trailer (SD; 1.85:1; 2:03): For obvious reasons, the marketing people focused on the film's broader jokes, but the trailer fairly represents the film.

$5 a Day Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Walken's Nat brings to mind another failed father he portrayed, but in a mainstream film: Frank Abagnale, Sr. in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002). Frank Sr. was a sadder and more poignant figure, because his reach exceeded his grasp; he wanted to be not only successful, but also respectable with the world's admiring eyes upon him. When he couldn't achieve his dream, he put all his hopes on his son, Frank Jr. By contrast, Nat doesn't care what the world thinks of him, and that is a very liberating state of mind. The only thing holding Nat back from complete freedom is that he does care about his son's opinion, and it's fascinating to watch Walken explore how Nat tries to resolve that tension—and to watch Flynn's dawning awareness of what he really means to his father. $5 a Day draws comedy from its characters' eccentricity and frustration, but it draws other things too. Highly recommended.