Please don't spend money on this.

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

I just watched this for the first time on my cable companies free On-Demand. I would say, interesting...complicated...disjointed...but demanding a 2nd view. Jennifer Jason Leigh is somewhat under-stated in this, and the boy is believable at times, totally not at other times. Questions come up at the end of almost every scene, so that's why I probably will view this again. But, can't help feeling I'm watching a "E-True Hollywood Story" about "Family Ties" or "Growing Pains" (what with Alan Thicke in this) at times it feels like an entertainment documentary, with some added drama that I won't "spoil". The fact that this was filmed in Canada is kind of parody of itself in that they make fun of that fact, but yet are also filming in Canada. Ironic.

Don Mckellar is a comic genius, as long as dry wit with an accent is your kind of laugh-a-thon. It is mine, so I loved this movie. Mckellar plays an endearing character who has just divorced the love of his life, for whom he has shot an independent film which has no backing as his on film love letter equates romantic love to ADHD images erratically juxtaposed against the nature. Since he has to put peanut butter on his bread, he begins working as a driver for a film being shot in his hometown. Thus, Mckellar's character meets 12 year old Taylor Bradford Burns, a teenage star whose fame is hanging on his ability to maintain "adorableness as a child" and thus, his film company and agents are pushing him to do another film whether it's worth doing or not (which is certainly debatable) before his "voice changes".Jennifer Jason Leigh is exquisite as always in her cooler than ever way, as the mother of the child. She's just looking to "take care of Taylor" the best way she knows how - which includes getting him the largest salary possible, living in the poshest house the studio will foot the bill for, and ensuring that he has "a male role model" by turning her responsibilities over to the first available and passably attractive guy she runs into --- who is of course, our newbie driver.It's a fun movie. Taylor Bradford Burns is played by a young man who is straddling the line between youth and a teenager with more experience than anyone under 18 should have. Worth renting. Enjoy it with popcorn.

I was amused reading the comments from the last poster on this film describing Don McKellar's performance a third-rate Peter Sellers -- because that's what it is. Unfortunately, unlike the late great Peter Sellers, all Don McKellar film performances are exactly the same. He will never be nominated for an Oscar for his acting, nor his writing or directing. Though there seems to be a tiny group of rich/powerful individuals in Toronto who seem to think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Except for about 10 people in the rest of Canada, nobody else in this country agrees, judging by box office "votes".This film seems to come a decade late. Like most Canadian features, it's warped out of time. Maybe it's two or three decades late. Anyways, the "lessons" at the end are heavily laboured and the characters are tiresome and unlikeable. The points it makes with regards to the corporate Hollywood publicity machine have been made many times before, much more effectively elsewhere.I will give it credit where credit is due: the scenes from the faux film "First Son" are pretty funny. I'll say that. It earns this attempt a couple of points. Hardly enough to redeem this disastrous second effort from Don McKellar the egomaniac "director/actor/writer" however, which falls really flat by any objective measure.

Disappointing follow-up to McKellar's sublime "Last Night" (one of my favorite films of all time) and "Red Violin", this film is about an obnoxious child actor in the mold of Haley Joel Osment, his equally obnoxious stage mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and the hapless indie filmmaker-turned-chauffeur (McKellar) who is assigned to baby-sit them. Minor hilarity ensues from the cross-border (US/Canadian) cultural confrontations and the underage star's affectation of adult nonchalance and knowledge, but not enough to rescue the film, or the viewer. I cannot imagine what possessed the wondrously gifted McKellar to consider such a banal theme. Please regard this as my personal plea to Don McKellar to return to writing and making films of the caliber of "32 Short Films about Glen Gould", "Last Night", and Red Violin".