DANNY COLLINS (2015)
Al Pacino as aging rockstar Danny Collins seemed weirdly miscast to me, but hey, it's Pacino and he pulled it off in movie star style. This story was loosely inspired by an event in folk singer Steve Tilson's life: Tilson recieved an encouraging letter from John Lennon, (with Lennon's phone number on it), decades after it was sent. He wonders how it might have changed his life if he got the letter at the time it was written. In this film, the rocker goes through a Hollywood movie sort of change and goes to New Jersey to make things right with a son he never met. In fact, in real life Tilson has several children that he has solid relationships with. The cast, including Annette Bening, Jennifer Garner, Bobby Cannavale, and Christopher Plummer, all turn out solid performances, (Bening is fantastic, actually), but the enjoyable movie never catches fire with me. I thought it was good, but not great; easy to watch, but it felt contrived and not deeply memorable to me.
Al Pacino as aging rockstar Danny Collins seemed weirdly miscast to me, but hey, it's Pacino and he pulled it off in movie star style. This story was loosely inspired by an event in folk singer Steve Tilson's life: Tilson recieved an encouraging letter from John Lennon, (with Lennon's phone number on it), decades after it was sent. He wonders how it might have changed his life if he got the letter at the time it was written. In this film, the rocker goes through a Hollywood movie sort of change and goes to New Jersey to make things right with a son he never met. In fact, in real life Tilson has several children that he has solid relationships with. The cast, including Annette Bening, Jennifer Garner, Bobby Cannavale, and Christopher Plummer, all turn out solid performances, (Bening is fantastic, actually), but the enjoyable movie never catches fire with me. I thought it was good, but not great; easy to watch, but it felt contrived and not deeply memorable to me.