With Robert De Niro’s powerhouse boxing and mob head-thumping days now on DVD, it’s nice to see him take on a more pensive role in Everybody’s Fine. This remake of the 1990 Italian film Stanno tutti bene stars Robert De Niro as Frank Goode, a recent widower who eagerly awaits a combined visit from his five children.

Since his wife passed, Frank has tried to keep busy. His spouse was the one to communicate with the kids, but Frank finally reaches out and plans a family reunion.  He makes trips to the store to pick out the right steaks and bottle of wine -- “an expensive one” he tells the shelf stocker who has no idea what that might be. The day finally arrives. After Frank gets the steaks ready to grill and the picnic table set, he sits and visualizes each empty seat filled with his children as young kids.

Then the phone rings -- and one by one his grown-up kids call with regrets. Days later and against doctor’s orders, Frank takes off by bus -- and eventually train and plane -- with a yellow envelope for each child and a proud shoulder to boast their success. None of his children are aware of Frank’s trip. He first sets out to visit his artist son David in New York City. The only part of David he sees is one of his paintings in the nearby store window, as David doesn’t answer his phone or the doorbell.

Off on a train to Chicago to visit his daughter Amy (Kate Beckinsale), Frank questions passengers on the train about what they see outside the window. After several incorrect answers he points to the wires that connect to poles and explains that’s what he did for a career, wrap all of those wires in order to protect them.

“Frank sees all the wire he has coated as being the thing that made his kids what they are today,” De Niro said about the scene. “For Frank, it’s everything; it’s the measure of his life.”

The wire also serves as a clever segue adding more depth to story. When Frank doesn’t find  David, he calls his daughter who alerts the other siblings that Dad is on the move. Throughout the film, we hear such conversations voiced over images of the wires.

Amy, a busy ad agency rep, must hustle to put everything in place for her father who expects to visit her perfect family. Her defiant young son, Jack (Lucian Maisel), almost ruins the charade, but Amy pulls it off hustling Dad off to the train the very same day. He misses his train and has to stay in a motel before setting off to visit Robert in Denver. Frank is optimistic this will be a good connection. How could he not be proud? After all, Robert is the conductor of an orchestra that plays around the world. But Robert confesses he plays a drum instead of conducting. Robert also musters up the nerve to tell his dad they have no connection, nor is there anything about his life to make his father proud.

Still ready to lift that proud shoulder, Frank sets off to Hollywood to see Rosie (Drew Barrymore). He beams from ear to ear when she arrives to pick him up in a limo and takes him to her swanky apartment. The arranged dinner appointment she makes at a fancy spot crumbles within minutes, and Rosie is left to juggle more balls than she can handle.

Each of these characters appears on screen for a brief time only. Everybody’s Fine concerns Frank’s journey, and De Niro plays Frank perfectly. The somber moments Frank spends alone in his house are very contemplative. De Niro is guarded in holding back the father’s joy about his children’s successes -- a joy held captive in the man’s small suitcase. But this patriarch becomes far more astute after the journey and does not end up empty handed.

While some of De Niro’s more physically demanding roles might be behind him, his film career is still booming with another five movie’s completed or filming for 2010, and eleven more in development.

Although Everybody’s Fine is an enjoyable De Niro movie, it will better suit viewers over 40.

(Released by Miramax Films and rated “PG-13” for thematic elements and brief strong language.)

Review also posted at www.reviewexpress.com.