Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, nudity and drug content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.10.15
You have to admire a fact-based
film that’s candid about not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth.
Danny Collins opens with a
disclaimer that reads “Kind of based on a true story a little bit.” Gotta love
it.
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| Disgusted by the sell-out, media-hungry clown he has become, Danny (Al Pacino, left) seriously contemplates ending it all ... little realizing that a most unusual birthday present from manager and longtime friend Frank (Christopher Plummer) is about to change his life. |
As it happens, writer/director
Dan Fogelman’s charming dramedy merely “borrows” a minor incident as a
jumping-off point for the wholly fictitious saga of an aging rock/pop star who
undergoes a life-changing epiphany.
Or so he hopes...
Fogelman has sharp writing
sensibilities: an eye for engaging character dynamics, and an ear for the sort
of intelligent, witty badinage that we don’t get often enough in today’s
movies. After script assists on animated fare such as Cars and Tangled, and
an endearing solo turn on the under-appreciated TV movie Lipshitz Saves the
World, Fogelman made an impressive big-screen writing splash with 2011’s
delightful Crazy, Stupid, Love.
His immediate follow-ups — The
Guilt Trip and Last Vegas — were somewhat disappointing, in comparison, but
Fogelman has kicked back into high gear with Danny Collins, on which he also
makes a respectable directing debut. The result is a thoroughly entertaining,
character-driven melodrama that grants Al Pacino his best role since his turn
as TV journalist Lowell Bergman, in 1999’s The Insider.
He stars here as Danny Collins, a
one-time rock wunderkind whose debut album, way back in the day, demonstrated
the poetic grace of a Bob Dylan ... but who, during the intervening four
decades, has succumbed to the drugs, alcohol and circus-style pomp of his
rock-god image, up to and including his hilariously overdone, George
Hamilton-style tan.
I hope Neil Diamond has a good
sense of humor, because the typical Danny Collins concert extravaganza with
which Fogelman opens his film — during which the star belts out his signature
anthem, “Hey, Baby Doll,” to enthusiastic audience participation — looks and
sounds just like the love-fest that occurs whenever Diamond does “Sweet
Caroline” during his shows.
Backstage, the ennui has taken
its toll, the years of identically vacuous performances deeply etched into
lines of discouragement on Danny’s face. And while he may have more money than
God, and all the trappings that wealth can buy — including a sexpot girlfriend
half his age (Katarina Cas, as the rarely dressed Sophie) — Danny has become
cynical, miserable, bored ... and desperate.
Desperate enough, that the notion
of another birthday is giving him thoughts of ending it all.
