Much like his peer and friend Robert De Niro, film legend Al Pacino’s career has been categorized as ‘phoning it in’ by the media since the early 2000s by accepting movies like “Gigli” and “Jack & Jill.” Granted there has been some stellar work in “Angels in America” and “You Don’t Know Jack,” but sometimes you have to wonder if Pacino’s just playing a loose, abridged version of himself on screen. A couple of months ago, we saw him as an aging, depressed, once respected actor in Barry Levinson’s “The Humbling.”
This month, we get to see Pacino as a has-been rock star who has lost practically all of his inspiration and dignity in Dan Fogelman’s “Danny Collins.”
Folk singer turned top 40 superstar Danny Collins (Pacino) is turning 70 and hasn’t aged a bit emotionally since about 1970. He still parties, sleeps with younger women, snorts cocaine and has been singing the same 10 songs for three decades. Naturally, Danny is unsatisfied by the shallow happiness he’s found. When his longtime manager Frank (Christopher Plummer) shows him a 40-year-old secret letter he’s been saving for Danny’s birthday party, the musician discovers that his idol John Lennon wrote him a fan letter telling him he is talented and to not let fame overshadow his work. Danny is suddenly inspired to not only write new music, but also connect with his estranged son Tom (Bobby Cannavale), whom he didn’t help raise.
Annette Bening plays a hotel manager Danny is attracted to, Jennifer Garner is Tom’s wife and Josh Peck and Melissa Benoist are hotel employees Danny tries to get together. Screenwriter-turned-director Fogelman has created a résumé of family films and romantic comedies the past decade including “Bolt”, “Tangled” and “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” His recent “Danny Collins” is not only his most mature, grown-up themed project to date, but also his most personal, with the secret fan letter actually based on a real letter singer Steve Tilston discovered from Lennon later in life. The film is compiled of a sweet mid-life romance between Pacino’s and Bening’s characters, a dysfunctional, yet caring, family plot between Pacino and Cannavale, and a soundtrack made up of Lennon classics and Danny’s “hits” (actually written by Ryan Adams and Theodore Shapiro). “Collins” could have easily become bloated with content, but fortunately manages to stay steady despite some clichés in Danny’s has-been characteristics and motives for his quick future. For fans of Pacino or Lennon, this dramedy would be best enjoyed.
