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# Critics doubtful ‘Godsend’ will bring in the ‘Di Nero’
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/critics-doubtful-godsend-will-bring-in-the-di-nero/
- Published: 2004-04-30T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:16:01.000Z
- Author: Dan Dunn
- Tags: Entertainment, Santa Monica, #archive-import

Nobody but the man himself knows for sure what Robert De Niro was thinking when he signed on for the god-awful “Godsend,” but my guess is it was something along the lines of “Hey, it’s a paycheck.” He’s De Niro, after all. He survived “The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle,” he’ll survive this. Or perhaps Bobby D was busy buying up real estate in Tribeca and didn’t bother to read the entire script. In all fairness, the first 30 minutes or so have the makings of a decent psychological thriller, but in the second act the film falls apart like a marriage made in Vegas. In 2001, Britain’s Nick Hamm directed an entertaining European cult flick called “The Hole” with youngsters Keira Knightley and Thora Birch, but in this his first U.S. film he struggles to maintain control over a convoluted story and veteran cast making dubious choices.

Greg Kinnear and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos are Paul and Jessie Duncan, a loving couple whose lives are shattered when their 8-year-old son Adam (Cameron Bright) is killed in a car accident. Enter De Niro as Dr. Richard Wells, a former college professor of Jessie’s who offers to bring Adam back using a highly experimental and illegal cloning procedure. The Duncans unwisely agree because they’re desperate, heartbroken and clearly never saw “Pet Semetary,” which makes a hell of a case against reincarnating precocious little tykes. Dead kids, film history has taught as, should remain dead. Once the new model Adam passes the age at which his predecessor expired, he begins to have nightmares involving an angry doppelganger who encourages him to behave badly. There’s an outlandish twist, of course — ever since “The Sixth Sense” curveballs are mandatory in this genre — and Paul discovers Wells is a mad scientist. In one of the film’s most laughably bad moments — and there are several — De Niro, alone in his car after having just whacked Kinnear upside the head in a church, pounds on the steering wheel and cries “Why? Why didn’t he listen to me?” A better question would have been, “Why? Why am I in this stinker?”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 30, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/043004.pdf?ref=smdp.com)