Hugo Pool

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Hugo Pool ★½ 1997 (R)

Pool cleaner Hugo Dugay (Milano) has to clean the pools of 44 backyard eccentrics. Reluctantly, she must enlist the aid of her gambler mom (Moriarty) and drug addict father (McDowell). Bizarre characters abound, including Downey Jr. overacting as Hungarian film director Franz Mazur, whose accent changes with each line. Most interesting is Dempsey as ALSafflicted Floyd Galen. The romance between Floyd and Hugo supplies the most sensitive and well-acted sequences. Disappointing, long-anticipated outing from director Downey Sr. (this is his first directorial effort in six years) who shared writing duties with wife Laura, who died of ALS in 1994. 92m/C VHS, DVD . Alyssa Milano, Patrick Dempsey, Robert Downey Jr., Malcolm McDowell, Cathy Moriarty, Sean Penn, Richard Lewis, Chuck Barris; D: Robert Downey; W: Laura Downey; C: Joe Montgomery; M: Danilo Perez.