King of California

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.