Media Log 1: Quick to Retire

TL;DR Letterboxd review here: https://letterboxd.com/scribbletoms/film/the-retirement-plan/

Last week, I decided I'd try doing a log of all the media I go through this year. Unfortunately, this meant getting my thoughts down on this movie: Tim Brown's 'The Retirement Plan' from 2023. 

Look I have no clue how best to critique this movie, because what else could there really be to say. It's another C-grade Nic Cage action flick made for a dime, where he once again has to carry the weight of its low-budget script and filmmaking. I can only pick on it so much. Yet even still, none that I have seen have been quite as dull as this. 

From what I can remember, the film opens with some woman's daughter getting sent to the Cayman Islands to stay with her assassin grandfather because she's gotten involved with the mafia and their... keycards? I wish I could remember the opening before this a bit more, or even any of the character names that flashed on splash screen, but I was too distracted by the terrible editing and fonts to fully take in the awful tragedy of how the mother gets kidnapped... because she didn't join her daughter on the plane to escape? They do explain later that it was because there was only one seat left on that flight, but sure. Why not.

Anyway, her daughter gets off the plane, grandfather Nic Cage shows up soon after and my interest starts to pique again. It's hard not to like any Cage performance, because even at his worst, its still Nic Cage! He takes the script somewhat seriously, applying a sort of drunken but wise persona not too far from 'Kick Ass'. That said, its clear immediately how the budget for this movie was distributed: 25% was spent on transport to the Cayman's, 25% was on Nic Cage's illustrious hair and homeless man cosplay, and the rest is put towards actually affording to book him. Well, not just him. 

In a surprise turn of events, Ron Perlman is here as one of the mafia men's muscle, and ends up being one of my favourite parts of the movie! High bar, I know. He plays him tough, silent, but a tad shortsighted role at first, and I was worried that this could get a bit one-note. But after he later kidnaps Nic Cage's granddaughter, there's a nice sort of banter between the two as he questions his role in the organisation. Definitely salvages the middle chunk of the movie with just Nic Cage's character and his daughter, with ambiguous and cliched family drama up the wazoo.

What gets me is that there's some pretty good ideas for a fun action comedy here. The synopsis of the family on the run in the Cayman's sounds great, and there's some good gags set up here. There's a point where Nic Cage is set up in a hotel room with her daughter just across from Ron Perlman and the granddaughter, and I thought for sure we were set to have some close missed encounters, a one-on-one fight through the dining halls, something. But no, they just get some new mafia guys up to the hotel floor and have Nic Cage take them down. Any humour that does arise from this situation is soured immediately by the film's casual cinematography and staging. Though the second it does stray from this in the third act, it goes straight into the most bizarre and confusing camera shots imaginable, only to shoot back to bland and boring in seconds.

Also I can't tell if its because I was only half watching at some point, but the film suddenly sprouts like 5 different subplots on you? There's already the main plot with the keycards and the mafia guys trying to track down the family, Ron Perlman's arc, and then Nic Cage and her daughter's drama. But then they start doing another plot with Cage's government insider and her partner, who is communicating with another mafia subsection, and is unaware that she knows about his blabbing. But then that same mafia subsection seems to be plotting against the other mafia in a power struggle of sorts, and then out of nowhere there's a corrupt politician (who mind you, has only appeared a few scenes ago) who steals the keys at the end anyway???

If it isn't clear already, this movie stinks. You can tell what kind of film this will be by the opening fonts, and yet it was even more underwhelming than I could imagine. Terrible script, expected direction, and some... interesting camera work? Even with decent performances from Nic Cage and Ron Perlman, this is certainly... a film to start the year with.

(Also if anyone knows how to embed letterboxd reviews like here https://nex3.github.io/cohost-letterboxd/, please let me know!)