Danny Collins review: Al Pacino gets his groove back

Director: Dan Fogelman; Screenwriter: Dan Fogelman; Starring: Al Pacino, Annette Bening, Jennifer Garner, Nick Offerman, Christopher Plummer, Bobby Cannavale, Melissa Benoist; Running time: 106 mins; Certificate: 15

Al Pacino gets his groove back as ageing rock star Danny Collins in a lively comedy-drama that draws from his own star aura and sends it up, too. At the age of 70, the titular Collins is a zoot-suited cliché, leaning on drugs, booze and a wife who is young enough to be his granddaughter, but he also has the saving grace of self-awareness and an impish sense of humour, which combined with Pacino's natural charm, helps him rise above some rather obvious psychological quandaries.

Writer/director Dan Fogelman (who scripted Crazy Stupid Love. and Last Vegas) claims the film is "kind of based on a true story, a little bit," a teasingly tenuous reference to a bit of fan-mail received by musician Steve Tilston from a certain John Lennon in 2005 - 34 years after it was sent. Collins is gifted with one such letter from his long-time manager Frank (played by an affectionately eye-rolling Christopher Plummer), who senses that his old pal needs a boost. It's the one genuine surprise that Collins gets on his birthday, which is otherwise an excuse for hangers-on (including his wife) to get wasted, entirely at his expense.

The letter raises a profound question for Collins about the direction his career - and his life - would have taken if he had gotten the letter on time, before selling out. His signature song 'Hey, Baby Doll' is a laughably cloying ditty that casts him in the light of a cut-price Neil Diamond, but his blue-rinsed fanbase can't get enough of it. His weariness with the same old routine is cheekily encapsulated by his reaction to a couple of old biddies sat in the front row, "gumming" strings of liquorice throughout his set. Imagining what John Lennon would think of this, Collins lays low at a hotel in New Jersey where he aims to compose a new album and - this is where the story gets a little sticky - surprise the son he has never met.

Al Pacino gets his groove back as ageing rock star Danny Collins in a lively comedy-drama that draws from his own star aura and sends it up, too.

As the accidental progeny, Bobby Cannavale gets predictably hot under his blue collar when Collins comes a-knocking after decades in absentia, while Jennifer Garner is typically dewy-eyed as the pregnant wife who tries to facilitate peace between them. The couple also have a cute-as-a-button daughter (Giselle Eisenberg) whose educational needs offer Collins a chance to make good, but Fogelman manipulates the situation and then pushes too far with a melodramatic, medical emergency. It's Pacino's banter with Annette Bening's buttoned-down hotel manager that really lights up the screen as well as the realisations he makes by constantly hitting the brick wall of her smiling sarcasm.

Whenever the family drama threatens to overwhelm, a dash of romance lifts the mood again. Collins's creative rebirth is, of course, pivotal and Sinclair becomes his unlikely muse, setting up a grand piano in his room and forever turning down his offers of dinner. Collins doesn't give up. He is an optimist, or else it's that sense of entitlement, which hitherto has led him down the wrong path. Fogelman never quite makes the distinction, but Collins is certainly sparkling company and Pacino slips into his shoes with the same aplomb that helps him carry off those suits.

3