Danny Collins (2015)
R
2.5 Stars out of 5
Writer/Director Dan Fogelman
Music Ryan Adams, Theodore Shapiro
Al Pacino Danny Collins
Bobby Cannavale Tom Donnelly
Jennifer Garner Samantha Donnelly
Annette Bening Mary Sinclair
Christopher Plummer Frank Grubman
“Danny Collins” is one of those movies that are almost
certainly a work of love by the team that put it out. It seems probable that
writer/director Dan Fogelman learned of a true life story wherein 70’s English
folk singer Steve Tiltson received a letter of encouragement form John and Yoko
Lennon 34 years after it was sent. I’ll presume further that he thought this
would be a good basis for an Americanized version of that story. The sad truth
of the matter is, though, the resultant movie feels like a highly contrived
story with artificial characters and dialog all crammed into the mold suggested
by the Tiltson story. The movie contains some very good acting by Al Pacino in
the title role, some pleasant music if you are a John Lennon fan, some good
comedic banter, but really a quite unbelievable story-line.
The film begins with a young Danny Collins (Al Pacino) just
beginning his musical career as a Rock and Roll singer/composer. He is being
interviewed by a fairly obnoxious editor for a Rock magazine; he’s obnoxious,
but still impressed by Danny. The movie then jumps forward 40 years and we re-meet
Danny. He is now very rich, very famous and seemingly very different from the
idealistic artist from the 70’s as he belts out his Neil Diamond-ish hits from
that era to audiences made up of fans now grown into their “golden” years. Danny
knows he looks ridiculous in his flamboyant clothes and as he stands alongside
his far younger girl friend. He gets blunt commentary from his even-older manager,
Frank (Christopher Plummer). Frank will not hold back as he confirms (when
asked by Danny) about every mistake Danny makes in his life. However, Frank is not a
bad guy. In fact, he quite clearly loves Danny for reasons explained late in
the movie. And he brings a present for Danny: the long lost Lennon letter. Thus
ensues in this scene and a few that shortly follow some of the movie’s best
acting by Pacino. The camera closes in on him as he ponders his life and now
truly begins to think about paths not taken and mistakes made all too often. It’s
not a bad set up for a movie.
The problem is that Danny and his fellow characters take one
improbable step after another as the movie plods to its inevitable conclusion.
Having decided to make changes in his life, Danny stops his tour in order to
fly to New Jersey (on his private jet, of course) in an effort to link up with
a son he has largely ignored for the son’s entire life. The son, Tom Donnelly (Bobby
Cannavale) is a blue collar type of American Hero. He lives in a lower middle class
Eden with his wife Samantha (Jennifer Garner) and their daughter Hope (what
else could she be named?). As Lennon’s music peals forth, we watch Donnelly
reject the father, the father try again using the grand-daughter as a kind of
leverage, achieve some reconciliation, lose it through a stupid act by the
father, and then (surprise!) get it back through his persistence. There’s
health problems with the granddaughter, the son, some loving comments by the
friend, and a potential age-appropriate (almost age-appropriate, as the movie
amusingly notes) paramour and a happy ending. The decisions and too fast to
believe changes in attitude that take place throughout the movie will likely
annoy you as much as they did me.
That being said, Benning, Cannavale, and Plummer play their
parts in a highly professional manner; each lending some verisimilitude to a
script that badly needs its feet placed on the ground where real people live
and interact. For example, Donnelly hates his father for having abandoned him,
and yet when he is told by Danny that he sent money to Donnelly and that Donnelly’s
mother rejected Danny after giving birth, Donnelly continues to hate and blame
Danny for having abandoned him and his mother. Who abandoned who? It is
presented as a stereotype of a self-interested Rock Star having left his responsibilities
behind in his wake, but the dialog completely fails to support this concept.
Later in the movie, we learn from Frank that Danny may have his flaws but he
never fails to support the ones he loves in his life. Well, what is it; is he a
worthless rake, or a caring man? The film simply deals in images, and they are
quite frankly images that do not align well at all.
Credit is due to Pacino (Golden Globe nominee for Best
Actor) for his acting and painful attempts at singing (think of Leonard Cohen
on a night when he is suffering from an especially bad sore throat). He does a
good job playing a role that I found to be reasonably well defined at least by
Pacino’s performance. But it is a role that does not seem to belong to the
movie’s counterweighing characters, his son and his family's life. Danny is a ridiculous
character, but not completely for the reasons the movies want you to believe. This
movie is easily skipped by anyone not thoroughly in love with Al Pacino’s acting or John Lennon’s
music (the film is replete with it, and to the movie’s credit they chose songs
that do align well with the scene unfurling before the viewer).
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