On a list of likely choices for the role of “Angriest Man,” I can’t imagine Robin Williams even cracking the top hundred.
The jovial, hyperverbal comic has played against type before, but his presence feels like epic miscasting in this underwritten dramedy, from director Phil Alden Robinson (“Sum of All Fears,” “Field of Dreams”), in which he plays Henry Altmann, a longtime rageaholic blindsided by bad medical news.
As Henry’s doctor, Mila Kunis fares little better with her character. Skilled as she is in the delivery of darkly sarcastic dialogue, it feels like a waste to strand her as a humorless woman exhausted by the rigors of hardworking, single city life.
Occasional narration is meant to bring depth and wit to both characters, but it feels forced and adds little to the motion of the plot, set off when Kunis’ Dr. Gill tells Henry he’s got a ticking time bomb of a brain aneurysm. Hounded for details she can’t give, she makes up an arbitrary death sentence of 90 minutes, which sends Henry scrambling to make amends with his estranged son (Hamish Linklater) and wife (Melissa Leo).
There are elements here that could have gone right. Anyone in a love/hate relationship with NYC will relate to Henry’s litany of things to loathe about his daily schlep through life. And his character has lost a son, which explains his dysfunctional marriage and relationship with his other son. But both of these tangents are frustratingly vague — even when Williams breaks into a rant, it’s aborted before it really takes off.
A surprising number of familiar faces pop up in Henry’s frantic dash around the borough. Besides Leo and Linklater, there’s Peter Dinklage as Henry’s law-partner brother, Sutton Foster as Henry’s daughter-in-law and Richard Kind as an old high school friend.
Joining Williams in the playing-against-type arena are mellifluous-voiced James Earl Jones as a stuttering electronics salesman and Louie C.K., master of the awkward, in the film’s down-and-dirty sex scene. Neither cameo is arresting enough to derail the feeling of slogging through this endless day with Henry, wondering — but, honestly, not worrying too much about — whether he’ll drop dead.