Review

You gotta love those dysfunctional family dramas that make your family life seem so much more normal than the characters you’re watching. You know, those movies where there’s at least one suicide, people run around having strange affairs and experimenting with drugs, same-sex relations and there’s a plot revelation so often you can’t tell if it’s a two-hour movie or a weekly re-cap of all the daytime soap operas.

Imaginary Heroes focuses on how the remaining members of the Travis family cope after the suicide of all-star swimmer Matt (Pardue), the eldest son. The father, Ben (a mis-cast Daniels) takes the death the hardest and becomes the most detached from the world. He also never stops reminding Tim (Hirsch) that he sees no purpose in living now that his favored son is out of the picture. Tim is sexually confused and there is a very hot scene/kiss between Tim and his best friend. This fact is kind of thrown out there and not followed up on.

Lucky for Tim, he and his mother Sandy (Weaver) have an encouraging and friendly bond. The film mainly focuses on these two characters and all of the silly things they do to remind themselves they’re still alive.

There are endearing and comic moments throughout Dan Harris’ film that make it likeable and then there are plot points so off the wall that the film becomes agitating and distracting. Lots of fun is the cameo performance by the famed drag act, Kiki & Herb. The main problem here is the screenwriter’s dedicated desire to include far too much material that just isn’t necessary. Take one good idea a run with it Dan! The Weaver & Hirsch character and acting relationship saves the day in this wanna-be flick that borrows from far too many other films of its kind.

 -- Chris Lombardi