There are a lot of young actors for whom Paul Newman might qualify as a father figure: Tom Cruise, Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton, among others. They're Newman's professional offspring in their poise and avoidance of artifice. But if there is one actor with no family resemblance to Newman, it's Robby Benson, who plays the aspiring writer son in this blue-collar ballad. Unlike Newman, Benson always makes the audience aware that acting is going on: His every sentence is an exercise in melodrama. In a drama about a stunted father-son relationship, such miscasting flirts with catastrophe, and Harry & Son cannot afford the flirtation. As co-producer, co-author, co-star and director of this enterprise, Newman hasn't put his usual ironic spin on the material either. Instead, he embraces the genre's clichés. An unemployed construction worker learns to express love for his boy after suffering through more physical and emotional trials than Job. Whatever motivated him, Newman doesn't let his passion surface. Indeed, Harry & Son is everything a typical Newman performance is not: sentimental, unfocused, unconvincing. Only in its final moment does the movie display any power. When a tough-minded friend, Joanne Woodward, mourns Harry's fate, her expression and economy, by comparison, magnify the faults of the film. (PG)
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