Bill Murray

ON THE ROCKS: waste of talent

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Rashida Jones and Bill Murray in ON THE ROCKS

The inoffensive but unsatisfying On the Rocks, which can technically be described as a romantic comedy, wastes of the talents of Sofia Coppola, Bill Murry and Rashida Jones.

Laura (Rashida Jones) suspects that her husband Dean (Marlon Wayans), the striving CEO of a startup, is cheating on her. Her father Felix (Bill Murray), a worldly art dealer and serial womanizer, encourages her to stalk Dean, and propels them into increasingly crazy dad-daughter escapades.

The problem is that the suspicious wife plot is so tired that not even the considerable talents of Murray and Jones can make it sparkle. From Shakespeare through Howard Hawks to I Love Lucy, we’ve seen comedies based on mistaken perceptions, so we should expect SOME new element or nuance. This is, after all, from the writer-director of The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation. The dad-daughter issues in On the Rocks just aren’t enough.

I did enjoy the character of Felix, for whom wordly is a gross understatement. Completely at home with the billionaire class, he also knows every cop, concierge and maître d’, and glides smoothly among all of them with charm and craftiness. He also can’t resist hitting on anybody without a visible Adam’s apple.

Murray is winning as Felix, but he can’t elevate the predictable screenplay. As we watched On the Rocks, I said to The Wife, “I’ve always said that I could watch Blil Murray reading the phone book, but this IS Bill Murray reading the phone book.”

On the Rocks is streaming on AppleTV.

ST VINCENT: authentic, funny and not too sentimental

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Bill Murray in ST VINCENT
Bill Murray in ST VINCENT

In the appealing comedy St. Vincent, Bill Murray plays the LAST guy – a hard-drinking, reckless gambling, whoring grump – that you’d ever leave your nine-year-old son with.  Of course, circumstances force a desperate single mom (Melissa McCarthy) to do just that.

There’s plenty of comic potential in Murray’s talent and that set-up, but St. Vincent rises above the average comedy.  The key is that – just like real life – these characters are complicated.  Murray’s character isn’t just a hedonistic boor, McCarthy’s isn’t a saintly victim and her ex isn’t just a cartoonish meanie.  Take all that authenticity, and toss in Chris O’Dowd as a priest with 21st Century irony and Naomi Watts as a pregnant Russian stripper, and the result is delightful.  And the kid actor, Jaeden Lieberher, is very, very good.

Hey, St. Vincent is what it is – a sentimental but not too sentimental audience-pleaser, pure and simple.

Hyde Park on Hudson: FDR was never so boring

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FDR was our first charismatic celebrity President in the era of radio and newsreels, a man who dominated his tumultuous times and who lived among a fascinating collection of characters.  It’s hard to imagine his life as boring, but it sure is in Hyde Park on Hudson.  Bill Murray is FDR and Lara Linney is his distant cousin and one of his mistresses.  It’s set mostly during the weekend that FDR entertained the King and Queen of England at his country home.  The problem is that the woman that Linney plays was a no-drama wallflower, and that the royal visit, while interesting, was a footnote to the history of the era.  The source material for Hyde Park on Hudson would have made a mildly entertaining one-hour segment on Masterpiece Theater – it’s not worth a visit to the theater.

Get Low

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Get Low:  Robert Duvall is a hermit who decides to put on his own funeral while he is alive.  It runs out that his 40 years of isolation is self-imposed house arrest for a mistake in his youth.  So what seems like a humorous Appalachian anecdote  turns out to be a fable of redemption.  Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek are excellent, while Duvall’s performance elevates the movie.  It’s a little movie that is entertaining and satisfying, with a dose of greatness from Duvall.