One question is central to the success of the movie "Hancock" -- can the story survive the direction?

For a long while, it's touch and go. And even the story starts to fall apart in the last few scenes. But ultimately, the answer is yes, the story outduels the filmmaking, if barely.

The premise is comic genius: What if there were a superhero who, although he fights crime and does other superhero-y things, was actually a real jerk? What if he drank heavily, pinched women and snarled at children?

What if his efforts to fight crime, though eventually successful, inadvertently led to millions of dollars' worth of collateral destruction? What if the populace, rather than being grateful, just wished he would take his superhero powers elsewhere?

It's an irresistible idea, a super-antihero, and it was smart enough to attract the attention of Will Smith to play the lead, Hancock. Smith has the charisma for the role; he musters the inner strength to reassure us that although his character is dissolute and disgusting, there are qualities hidden within him that we can like. Rather than being an action film, like most superhero flicks, it will be more of a film about a character's growth.

But then someone went and handed the film to director Peter Berg. Berg can be very good, as he was in "The Kingdom" and "Friday Night Lights," or he can be awful, as he was in the aptly titled "Very Bad Things."

In "Hancock," Berg apparently decided for no good reason to try to shoot as much of the film as possible in close-up. And this isn't just a movie-critic thing, either -- the audience notices it, too, and becomes annoyed. The camera is placed so close to the actors' faces that we feel like we're invading their personal space. We want to take a few steps back, just to give them some room.

And Berg compounds this sensation of farsightedness by electing to film in shaky cam. This fad of intentionally unsteady camera work has ceased to be interesting (except when Paul Greengrass does it, and even he should take care). In "Hancock," the camera shakes for no reason, adding no texture to the film and succeeding only in making us nauseous.

And yet, the film holds our interest. Writers Vy Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan mix equal doses of comedy and character development (full disclosure: Gilligan is a personal friend). They really hit their stride in the second act, which is the funniest by far, and they deliver a wonderful and wholly unexpected twist.

Jason Bateman is amusing as the public-relations expert ("He's the Bono of P.R.") who undertakes the task of making Hancock more likable; Charlize Theron plays his lovely and supportive wife.

The humans are all fine, but they tend to be overwhelmed by the special effects, and it must be said that the effects here are particularly flimsy. The story goes a little off-track in the last few scenes, and the premise gets a bit goofy. But it all comes together nicely at the end.

Ultimately, "Hancock" is a lot like Hancock. It may flail and stumble about, but eventually it all works out for the best.