Review of Danny Collins

Danny Collins is the story of an aging musician who receives a long- lost letter from John Lennon telling him to not give in to fame and to strive to write from the heart. This letter forces him to look back on his life. He begins to regret selling out and decides to cancel his current tour and sort his life out by reuniting with his son and writing some new songs. I rather admire this film. The characters are well developed and flawed. They don't feel like typical movie characters but rather act like real people. Their conversations don't flow perfectly at all times, there are awkward pauses and the topic of the conversation doesn't always flow in the desired direction. These flaws really attached me to every central character in the film. All of this was portrayed with great talent by just about every actor on screen. Humor was injected quite often and skillfully into dialogue to keep a rather sad story hopeful. The pacing was well done as I was never bored and wanted to see what was going to happen next after every scene. Sure some scenes moved slower than others, but I felt that the slower moments were utilizing tension to make the payoffs feel more satisfying. While some of the events can be seen as a little cliché, they are typically done in original ways that make the clichés feel fresh. Unfortunately the final moments of the film fall apart. It's not like what happens is terrible or out of character or anything that negative. It's just that I feel that the film ends a little earlier than it should have. A rather large stumbling block appears towards the end of the film and it is not resolved in a satisfying way, if at all. The focus of the film completely changes and several plot points that were building up the entire film just end without resolution. While this doesn't completely ruin the film by any means, it does drop my grade a couple of points. If the film had continued for another ten to fifteen minutes to resolve some of these issues I would have loved this film. Still, I did enjoy watching the movie and would recommend watching Danny Collins if you want a good character driven story as long as you understand that the ending might fall flat.