St. Vincent
Directed by: Theodore Melfi
Written by: Theodore Melfi
Starring: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts, Chris O'Dowd, Terrence Howard, Jaeden Lieberher, Kimberly Quinn, Dario Barosso, Scott Adsit, Lenny Venito, Nate Corddry, Ann Dowd
Comedy - 103 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 15 Oct 2014
Written by: Theodore Melfi
Starring: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts, Chris O'Dowd, Terrence Howard, Jaeden Lieberher, Kimberly Quinn, Dario Barosso, Scott Adsit, Lenny Venito, Nate Corddry, Ann Dowd
Comedy - 103 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 15 Oct 2014
Working as the eponymous Vincent in St. Vincent, Bill Murray engraves his name with authority on the growing list of movie adults who should be banned from interacting with children. Other folks circling the top of Negligence Mountain awaiting their child endangerment indictments include Billy Bob Thornton’s Bad Santa, Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy, and to make sure the charges stick, we must not forget any man who has played Humbert Humbert as he helps ‘guide’ Lolita through those tough adolescent years. Vincent’s life pleases neither him nor anyone else so he more anticipates death than fears it. He is a cross between Herman Blume from Rushmore (without the money) and Bob Harris from Lost in Translation (again without the money and with the extra pain of never having met Scarlett Johansson).
Vincent lives in the part of Brooklyn that even the trendy hipsters left alone. His wood-sided LeBaron and crumbling house almost visibly cry because they miss the 1970s so much. Disrupting his routine of hangovers, gambling debts, and spending time with his favorite pregnant hooker, Daka (Naomi Watts, 2011's J. Edgar), come new next door neighbors. Single mom Maggie (Melissa McCarthy, 2013's The Hangover Part III) and her precocious 11 year-old, Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), are looking for a fresh start away from philandering dad but what they get is chain-smoking, heart attack any day now Vincent. Maggie is a nurse with unpredictable hours so (in)conveniently Vincent becomes his after school babysitter.
Vincent lives in the part of Brooklyn that even the trendy hipsters left alone. His wood-sided LeBaron and crumbling house almost visibly cry because they miss the 1970s so much. Disrupting his routine of hangovers, gambling debts, and spending time with his favorite pregnant hooker, Daka (Naomi Watts, 2011's J. Edgar), come new next door neighbors. Single mom Maggie (Melissa McCarthy, 2013's The Hangover Part III) and her precocious 11 year-old, Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), are looking for a fresh start away from philandering dad but what they get is chain-smoking, heart attack any day now Vincent. Maggie is a nurse with unpredictable hours so (in)conveniently Vincent becomes his after school babysitter.
Oliver doesn’t seem to mind, or perhaps not understand, what kind of man Vincent is. The lessons in odds calculations at the track go down easy and Oliver is savvy enough to call his sardine can dinner sushi. Lieberher as Oliver is very good in his first film role; he approaches the border of too smart for his age but doesn’t cross it and when it comes time for his climactic ‘bring the house down’ speech, he holds back a bit rather than aim for the tear ducts which he could easily reach out and whisper to them to just ‘let go.’
In the other supporting roles, Melissa McCarthy and Naomi Watts pulled off the ol’ switcheroo. We expect slapstick and outrageous one-liners from McCarthy while Watts is supposed to circle the action waiting to vulture the dramatic weightlifting duties. Watts cries on command, not McCarthy. Well, Vincent would have a few choice words for your assumptions. There is no slapstick here but Watts spreads on a chunky peanut butter layer of one hell of a Russian accent while McCarthy is more than convincing as a single mom trying to, but not quite holding it all together. McCarthy nails a very dramatic scene where she must cry through a story and it comes across as a refreshing shower washing away nightmares of her awful Tammy character we endured this summer.
St. Vincent is Theodore Melfi’s first feature film. Known for commercials and a hand full of short films, you can feel St. Vincent is a story he has been holding onto for a long time trying to figure out how to get it made. He shot in his native Brooklyn in and around the meat packing houses, prostitutes, and dive bars. At one point, Vincent yells at a kid, “I know you! You’re Brianna’s kid, the only half-Polak half-Puerto Rican in Brooklyn!” There is a good chance Melfi heard someone yell that line firsthand in a liquor store parking lot.
You know from the previews you want to watch Bill Murray chew his way through a meaty role like Vincent and see his deadpan Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters stare again. However, St. Vincent is good, not great. From the earlier list, the cantankerous neighbor who hates kids but must endure them is nothing new. Melfi doesn’t break any new ground but he doesn’t copycat his predecessors either. St. Vincent showcases another Murray master’s class and goes Freaky Friday on Melissa McCarthy and Naomi Watts having them switch characters for a film. Sitting through the end credits watching Murray channel Bob Dylan is worth the price of admission alone.
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