Movie review: ‘Father of Invention’

In “Father of Invention,” Kevin Spacey doesn’t exactly play an inventor; rather he plays an infomercial star who refers to himself as a “fabricator,” in that he puts products together to form something new, like a combination pepper spray and digital camera or night light and humidifier.

When his combined ab-cruncher and remote-control clicker bears a flaw that lops off users’ fingers he is disgraced, made penniless and imprisoned. Once out, he tries to get a fresh start by patching things up with his daughter (Camilla Belle).

The film starts off with a playfully ironic tone, as if it’s going to be a comedy about an inventor who reinvents himself, but then shifts into more of a melodrama about a man reconnecting with his daughter.

Director and co-writer (with Jonathan D. Krane) Trent Cooper made his feature debut with “Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector” (allow that to sink in), and here he never finds the way to reconcile the film’s conflicting tones.

Johnny Knoxville’s bumbling box-store manager in particular seems to always be in a scene from another movie, Belle is woodenly disengaged, and when the funniest moment in a movie is the outtake song during the end credits — by Craig Robinson and Virginia Madsen with a title unprintable here — something is obviously wrong.

“Father of Invention.” MPAA rating: PG-13 for sexual material and language. Running time 1 hour, 33 minutes. At Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex, Santa Monica.