Danny Collins (2015)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on April 1, 2015 @ tonymacklin.net.

For much of the film Danny Collins, Al Pacino - as the title character - sails along at his effervescent best, cracking wise. He's vibrant and engaging.

Pacino plays an aging rock star who is doggy-paddling through the shoals of success. His creative days are far behind him. He's now identified with the raucous ditty, "Hey, Baby Doll," which he has to perform ad nauseum for audiences who are avid to hear it. But his rigorous posturing is personally empty for him.

Danny is engaged to a much much younger, sparkling, shallow woman, with whom he has nothing in common. His life is a gaudy pose.

On Danny's birthday his cagy, longtime agent (Christopher Plummer) gives him a gift that shocks him back to life. It's a letter that John Lennon sent to Danny in 1971, but Danny never received it. If he had, Danny realizes he would have called Lennon, and his career and life might have turned out differently.

His agent has acquired the letter from a collector and proudly gives it to Danny. In the letter Lennon is reacting to a statement Danny made to a magazine about what he thought of the threat of success. Lennon says not to worry about it, "stay true to your music."

Danny's personal life is a mess. He's never even met his adult son (Bobby Cannavale) or his daughter-in-law (Jennifer Garner) or their young daughter (Katarina Cas). He decides to try to redeem himself from the wreckage of the past.

There is an actual letter that Lennon sent to British folk singer Steve Tilson reacting to Tilson's comments in a magazine. It didn't get to him until 34 years later. It stimulated Dan Fogelman into writing a screenplay and directing his first feature.

Fogelman wrote Last Vegas (2013), which also had a stellar veteran cast, but settled for entertaining schlock. It did quite well at the box office. Does Fogelman still have schlock in his back pocket?

For a while Fogelman's dialogue and plot in Danny Collins serve Pacino well. Danny has potential. Pacino has a character he can wrap his creative, percolating spirit around. Danny has independence, wit, and flair.

And then Fogelman sells him out.

In a film that was human and unique, Fogelman has a crucial scene that seems out of a PBS fundraiser for Golden Moldies.

Worse yet - and to the ultimate detriment of the film - it's followed by a scene we've seen 100 times before. A character relapses and goes on a binge of alcohol - this is al pacino not al cohol - and drugs. He's accompanied by two stock characters dragged back in. The film never fully recovers from that trite, labored lapse.

Special becomes generic. The film gains some of its equilibrium - Al is Al - but never gets entirely back on the road not taken. It's now been on the well-traveled road.

Fogelman's loss of nerve costs Pacino dearly. Al possibly was on the verge of a near-classic performance.

The cast is especially gifted. Christopher Plummer and Annette Bening are as good as they can be as the agent and the hotel manager who challenges the wit of Danny. Cannavale and Garner humanize their difficult roles.

Other than the performance of Pacino, the most notable aspect of Danny Collins is the achievement of getting the rights to nine songs by John Lennon. Lennon sings them himself - they are not covers. That in itself raises Danny Collins to a higher level.

If only Fogelman had gotten a letter from John Lennon. What might Danny Collins have been?

Imagine.

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