After having endured Diane Keaton’s Mack & Rita last year and declaring it the worst movie I saw that year, you can imagine my enthusiasm when my editor sent me to review 80 for Brady. It stars a bevy of older ladies once more on the hunt for the hunk, this time no other than pushing-forty Tom Brady, the NFL legend and a definite hunk.
The comedy is not so much cheesy as it is lame, a script to literally die about. Maybe a chuckle or two; after all Jane Fonda is an impressive physical presence, albeit costly to look that way, whose very presence makes one smile in wonder at over 80 looking darn good. The other three: Rita Moreno, Lily Tomlin, and Sally Field (not yet 80) are enthusiastic and dang it, beautiful in their own way.
Their acclaim as uncommonly-gifted actresses provides much of the answer about their longevity and fame. In 80 for Brady, however, they are just old folk looking for kicks by going to the 2017 Super Bowl and enjoying the presence of their idol, Tom Brady, who appears briefly and is a producer of this film. Ironically, as an actor he's a superior athlete, as out of his league in front of the cameras as they would be on the field.
Shenanigans to get into the game and be responsible for his win are underwhelmingly easy and dull, and interaction among the four, even buddies Tomlin and Fonda, is lukewarm without a memorable scene to say that we finally witness performances worthy of the multi-awarded actresses.
To the film’s credit and specifically director Kyle Marvin and Booksmart writers Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins is that it never gets too silly or too maudlin, just nothing but where we are left thinking of how lively and lovely the ladies are at their age. Perhaps we need to pay more attention to the aging, as Europeans do, and then movies like this wouldn’t seem so odd or even worth producing.
I’m caught with a downer review and the prospect of my editor sending me to review the next Diane Keaton movie. Annie Hall it probably won’t be like, but I can hope.
80 for Brady
Director: Kyle Marvin
Screenplay: Emily Halpern (Booksmart), Sarah Haskins (Booksmart)
Cast: Rita Moreno (West Side Story), Jane Fonda (Klute), Sally Field (Places in the Heart, Norma Rae) Lily Tomlin (Nashville)
Run Time: 1h 38m
Rating: PG 13
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and hosts Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take out of WCBE 90.5 FM. Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com
