And now Michael Douglas moves into the twilight period of
modeling his father, Kirk. Not that the son’s age is as advanced as his
father’s when Kirk started playing whimsical geezers. But with Kirk pushing 91,
there isn’t much time left for Michael to acknowledge his face-sake legacy.

King of California
reminds me of Kirk’s last, muted hurrah in 1999’s Diamonds, when he played a former
boxer on an improbable treasure hunt. The old man’s son (Dan Aykroyd) thought
him crazy in that movie. Michael’s character Charlie in Mike Cahill’s film is
certifiably so, just released from a mental hospital and probably too soon.

Charlie allows
Michael Douglas to appear grayer and shaggier than usual, his wild eyes looking
beyond everything not leading to his own private El Dorado.
While hospitalized, Charlie found a legend on the Internet about a 17^th
century Spanish explorer who buried a fortune. There’s gold in them there California hills, or maybe not.

Evan Rachel Wood
(Across the Universe, Thirteen) plays Charlie’s daughter Miranda. Like Aykroyd
in Diamonds she pities her father’s apparent delusion and loves him too much to
not lend a hand. It is nice to see Wood playing a teenager without guile or
vices for a change. “Nice” is the operative word for King of California.

Cahill’s movie also
recalls the Disney movie Holes with its buried treasure angle and peculiar
humor. Of course, that movie didn’t include brushes with swingers, a misguided
detour Cahill employs to make this a more adult fantasy. An intrusive musical
score filled with jangling dobros and an occasional Theramin riff cues your
smiles. A light-hearted character study becomes a so-so caper flick and then something
less.

The best reason to check
out King of California is seeing Michael Douglas pulling out the crazy stops
with his best performance since Wonder Boys.

Playing
against type, he proves that beneath the jet set élan beats a gifted actor’s heart,
but one requiring special material. Michael doesn’t do comedy well (The In-Laws
remake, for example). Here, he unearths nuggets of amusement, making a showy
role less obvious than it likely appeared on the page. You can almost hear Kirk
saying “Good job, son,” then adding how he would’ve done it better.

King of California begins a very limited engagement Sunday at Tampa Theatre.