Do you have any conception of how deeply I enjoy/loathe the exceptional badness that is Shia LaBeouf? DO YOU?! And now it appears that he might – MIGHT – be appearing as Robert De Niro’s son in the film Spy’s Kid, from Disturbia and Eagle Eye director DJ Caruso. I’m going to have to take a breath before I go on.
I’m better now. Let us look at this with as much critical distance as we possibly can. Despite the title, Spy’s Kid is actually based on a real-life news report by Oregonian writer Bryan Denson about how an imprisoned and disgraced CIA operative got his son to exchange state secrets with the Russians. Sounds like a pretty good part for De Niro, yes?
The spanner in the works is LaBeouf by my view, but again that might be an unfair assessment. After all, the actor did manage to make himself not repellant in another questionably named film that was actually pretty good (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps). With De Niro to lend him a guiding hand, and perhaps a good dose of hero worship, he might not be too bad as Nathan Nicholson, the good son who became a bad boy.
Maybe the biggest concern is actually Caruso, who has yet to produce a film we can really label as quality. And the title makes me cringe every time I write it. Change it up and we might be in business here.
Spy’s Kid might not come to fruition, of course, but it’s an interesting story and could make a very good film with De Niro and LaBeouf. No screenwriter has yet been attached, so these are very early days yet.
What do you think of De Niro and LaBeouf as father and son? Will it work? Or will I be forced to go back to making fun of LaBeouf? Let us know in the comments.
