1.5 out of 5.0 stars
Flying into theaters with as much grace as a clumsy housecat, Dito Montiel’s “Riff Raff” debuted in theaters Feb. 28. A former hitman, Vincent (Ed Harris), tries to fall off the grid after living a life of crime, while his new family with his second wife comes into jeopardy. Sandy (Gabrielle Union), and her son, DJ (Miles J Harvey), discover new ghosts of Vincent’s past with the return of his first family and the criminal baggage they bring with them. Although it stands as a strong story in concept, the execution of the final product thoroughly trods upon and ruins it through its unlikeable characters, bland performances, inconsistent tone and its every attempt at “humor” falling flat on its face.
With slower character-centric dramas that don’t rely too much on action or adventure to capture the audience’s attention, it is crucial to set up interesting, likeable characters from the get-go. Unfortunately for John Pollono’s script, it fails to follow either of those important criteria. The film starts with narration from what seems to be our main character, DJ, cutting from the end to the beginning with in-media-res. From the beginning, DJ establishes himself as annoying and intrusive, spilling private information among characters with little to no resistance. This is purely the fault of the script because he has also been established to be a mature biology student going to Dartmouth College. His lack of social graces among family members, despite the fact that he knows better, immediately destroys his relatability.
Beyond the main character, the supporting cast is composed of characters with the same issue. Ruth (Jennifer Coolidge), the ex-wife of Vincent’s first family, is absolutely unbearable on screen. The majority of her dialogue consists of vulgarity and tactless references to sex, which not only undercut the tone of dramatic scenes but fail to give her any depth. She’s simply a side character that is loud. This kind of one-note characterization is present for Sandy and Lonnie (Pete Davidson) as well. Sandy is upset at the fact that Vincent’s first family has popped back into their life, but is reactive to everything they do and takes more issue with her son than anyone else when he tries to get to know them better. Lonnie, one of the villains of the story, throws all of his complexity out the window when he agrees to kill a happy couple after they’ve done nothing but help him.
These characters fill a plot that, while not being overtly terrible, is planned and paced horribly. The story doesn’t officially kick off until 20 minutes into the film, where Rocco (Lewis Pullman) and his girlfriend Marina (Emanuela Postacchini) finally hint in conversation that hitmen are after them, Leftie (Bill Murray) and Lonnie. Although he is the main character of the story, DJ is drastically uninvolved in the whole plot, acting and reacting without agency of his own. The audience has no central character to follow or get invested in and as a result the movie feels unfocused.
The performances themselves fall flat for the most part. Murray is full of charm and a villain’s charisma: a performance deserving of a better movie. Harris carries a hidden gravitas which does well to enforce who Vincent is. Every other performance ranges from average to downright bad, with Coolidge being the biggest offender. Most of the characters are let down by the script, but her performance along with Union’s and Harvey’s do little to elevate the characters from being storyboard cutouts.
The tone of the movie is all over the place. “Riff Raff” tries its hardest to combine dramatic and comedic elements together in order to lift up a message about the messiness of families and how they’ll always come together when it matters. Unfortunately, the inclusion of the comedy destroys the dramatic weight of the message. It’s hard for the viewer to feel for a family member’s last words at gunpoint when they’re consistently cracking jokes out of character and disrupting the pacing of the scene. Characters will over explain crazy and downright pathetic parts of their backstory in order to generate a laugh with the audience, but these lines are only embarrassing for the viewer to listen to.
The ending of the movie is the inconsistent tone’s greatest victim. The whole family comes into conflict with each other regarding hidden information, leading to the presumed death of Vincent at the hands of Ruth. The very next scene — the final one in the movie — is Vincent and the rest of the family, including Ruth, sitting around the table as if nothing happened. The time jump between the two scenes is not even a day. The audience has no idea what to feel; nothing seems to make sense in a five-minute span of runtime.
Despite the few standout performances from veteran actors, “Riff Raff” stands as a cluttered mess with too many conflicting story beats and elements to salvage anything of use. Characters with no substance, combined with a slate of errors in the story’s writing do more than enough to support the idea that the only riff raff is the audience watching this movie.
