In spite of clocking in at just 103 minutes, Dito Montiel‘s family crime comedy “Riff Raff” is exceptionally long. Its all-star cast performs admirably, in a film that takes its time to get going, reveals and confronts little once it does, and uses none of its story swerves to build on its dramatic themes, or its one-note humor. As the secrets of the past catch up with a father and son, threatening to detail their new idyllic lives, the film’s established ideas of love and family don’t so much come into play as they simply hover out of focus, waiting to be deployed. Unfortunately, they never are.
A fleeting, one-shot prologue portrays a climactic moment during which meek teenager DJ (Miles J. Harvey) holds an older, bloodied man, Vincent (Ed Harris) at gunpoint. The former’s personable voiceover then takes us back to a few days prior, revealing them be stepson and stepfather. As the movie begins, they get along exceptionally well, albeit during shooting practice out by their rural holiday home, making one wonder what leads to the aforementioned climax, but providing tiny hints along the way.
They have a frank relationship, and cheekily discuss private matters of romance, of which DJ’s mother — and Vincent’s second wife — Sandy (Gabrielle Union) disapproves. However, this fun family dynamic is interrupted by the sudden, late-night arrival of Vincent’s older, estrange, rabble-rousing son Rocco (Lewis Pullman), his sweet, pregnant Italian girlfriend Marina (Emanuela Postacchini), and his passed-out mother Ruth (Jennifer Coolidge), i.e. Vincent’s foul-mouthed, filter-less ex. They claim to have shown up to celebrate the new year with family, but Vincent is immediately suspicious that Rocco is in some kind of trouble.
Elsewhere — as if to confirm this inkling, though without confirming exactly how and why — an older, violent mafioso, Leftie (Bill Murray) and his young, well-dressed associate Lonnie (Pete Davidson) embark on a road trip in search of a target. Presumably, the person they’re after is at this winter getaway, but the information comes to us in slow and infrequent spurts. In the meantime, the two halves of Vincent’s family life come crashing together, resulting in interactions that are initially amusing, since they all come from a place of broad caricature buoyed by insecurity.
Pullman departs from his timid “Top Gun: Maverick” character and takes on the role a leather jacket-wearing “bad boy” with a temper and daddy issues, making him a treat to watch. Newcomer Harvey is equally intriguing, as a minuscule boy with a big heart and big dreams, on the verge of leaving for college. He also happens to be dealing with romantic heartbreak in strange, perhaps overly logistical ways, given his scientific inclinations. It seems as though he could use the advice of an older brother — just as Rocco could use someone to guide, if only to prepare him for fatherhood — but lingering tensions get the better of Rocco, and he lashes out at DJ for his excessive enthusiasm.
Unfortunately, this is about as interesting as any of the movie’s dynamics ever get. For the most part, as soon as a character is introduced, their whole persona and identity become crystal clear in that very moment — a testament to the cast, and their ability to tap into writer John Pollono’s text — but there’s usually nowhere left for them to go. The one-note joke surrounding Ruth is that she’s drunk and horny, a messy “type” that Coolidge plays with energy and aplomb, but there’s nothing more to her than that.
Postacchini’s Marina gets to throw a few life and love lessons DJ’s way, though these don’t come in handy at any point in the story. Union’s Sandy seems to exist only as a “straight man” foil to some of the other, more chaotic characters, but she has little ethos of her own. And while Harris’ Vincent is verbose enough to command attention, his character only has the appearance of layers. These are supposedly unveiled the more we learn about his past (and about the two men headed his family’s way), but while these details help set up potential drama, Montiel never takes advantage of this, spilling Vincent’s secrets to his family only once it’s time for things to wrap up. Anything resembling payoff arrives far too late.
Despite establishing potentially fun and explosive dynamics, “Riff Raff” takes a long, drawn-out approach to its story, with a fair few detours along the way that seldom amount to anything. Next to Pullman, Michael Covino is perhaps the movie’s most alluring presence, as a vicious, violent character who ties the movie’s various threads together; ironically, he only exists in flashbacks, as a phantom of meaning and conflict, while the movie struggles to engineer the same in the present, as its disparate plots threaten to collide. Unfortunately, it isn’t worth the wait, given how quickly the movie’s energy plateaus, and never recovers.
Source Agencies
