Danny Collins (2015) Film Review

“An aging rock star decides to change his life when he discovers a 40-year-old letter written to him by John Lennon.” – IMDb

Danny Collins

Starring

Al Pacino, Annette Bening, Jennifer Garner

Written and Directed by

Dan Fogelman

Box Office:

$10,835,752 Worldwide with an est. budget of $10,000,000

Seeing as I am a huge Al Pacino fan, I had to watch this film as soon as I saw that it stars him, alongside Christopher Plummer, Jennifer Garner, Bobby Cannavale, and Annette Bening.    It has a rating of 7/10 on IMDb, which isn’t bad; many IMDb users can be quite critical.

This film, written and directed by Dan Folgeman, is based on the life of Singer- Songwriter, Steve Tilston.  The film begins with a young Collins (Eric Michael Roy) being interviewed by a writer (Nick Offerman) for a magazine.  Years later, set in 2005, we see an aging rock star Collins, speaking to his manager, played by the amazing Christopher Plummer.

This is when Collins finds out he was meant to have received a letter from John Lennon 35 years prior- only a few months after The Beatles broke up in December of 1970.  It has been confirmed that Lennon even included his phone number and the letter was signed, “Love, John and Yoko”.  The real letter is below:

After being notified of this huge news, his whole life changes.  He wants to change his ways.  This leads him to reconnect with his estranged son (Bobby Cannavale), who he has never met.  He also meets his pregnant daughter-in-law (Jennifer Garner) and his granddaughter Hope, played by Giselle Eisenberg.  This is when the film starts veering off course of the “real life” events of Tilston.  Like most “dramedies”, that’s just the way it goes!

Thoughts:

This film can pull at your heart strings if you allow it to.  For most of the movie, Pacino had me laughing at his rambunctiousness.  Due to the family aspect of it, there were a few times when my eyes teared up.  I don’t want to give anything away, but there was a twist I was not expecting about halfway through that drew me into the movie even more.

Every single actor was right where they should have been.  Eisenberg is adorable and she brings the whole Garner/Cannavale family together.  Bening does a great job as a side character and she does help bring in a few moments of comedic relief.

I definitely recommend this movie.

To who?  Well, anyone who appreciates an “easy going”, “I’ll just have it playing in the background”, “watching it just for Pacino” kind of film.  Plus, it features music by John Lennon- major bonus.

It definitely makes me wonder…

How would I feel if I had known John Lennon had written a letter to me, and I only received it years too late?  I like movies that make you reflect on your own life and push you to make changes if necessary.

Danny Collins is definitely one of those films.

At first, the end made me say “No.  Do not end it there.”  I’m not sure if it’s because I couldn’t believe it was actually over, or if it was because it was so good, that I wanted to see more.  After giving it some time, and a bit more thought, I think it ended perfectly.  I am very pleased and grateful that I didn’t end up hating the entire film just because of the end.  *Sigh of relief*

If you want to see Steve Tilston, the one who inspired Danny Collins, here he is doing an interview at the premiere of the film.