World's Greatest Dad

It takes a while for the movie to build to its wicked possibilities and only a few scenes to squander them. In between, “World’s Greatest Dad’’ has one wonderful sequence in which Lance refashions the suicide, composes the note, then shows up at school to a scrum of hugs from his students, while the faces of Kyle’s ghost and Kyle’s meek only friend (Evan Martin) watch in judgment. It’s set to a song whose mantra is “love is simple,’’ and orchestrated with the complexity and style of certain very good music videos. There’s nothing else in the movie like it, which is a shame since it seems to come to Goldthwait so effortlessly.

Goldthwait was famous in the 1980s and early 1990s for a strident sort of neurotic comedy. It was rude and sometimes sick, but it stemmed from insecurities that made him approachable. He’s directed a lot of television (seemingly every episode of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show) and two other features, of which 1991’s “Shakes the Clown’’ is an outré cult-classic.

The new movie is frustrating. It manages to find something memorably specific in the generic social flotsam of the American high school - the impulse we have to memorialize tragedy with earnest kitsch. Before Kyle’s death, Lance’s poetry class was barren. Suddenly, his room is full of kids reciting banal tributes to this chronically horny stranger.

But “World’s Greatest Dad’’ can’t determine how badly it wants to be in bad taste. When Lance stops at a newsstand to weep at a rack of dirty magazines that remind him of his dead son, you hope the movie will keep aiming for that kind of ribaldry. Instead, the film focuses on Lance’s rivalry with a tall, sexy English instructor (Henry Simmons) for the attention of perky teacher (Alexie Gilmore). It’s not bad, but it’s also pat, juvenile, and not nearly as interesting as the mischievous satire you hope for. At times, the film recalls some amalgam of “Heathers’’ and “Election,’’ but its talons don’t draw the same blood.