Director: Theodore Melfi
Year Released: 2014
Rating: 2.5
A cranky (and heavy-drinking) Vietnam Vet (Bill Murray) - whose beloved wife is a nursing home with Alzheimer's - ends up an unlikely babysitter for his new neighbor's son (Jaeden Lieberher) and he teaches the taciturn child about the (relative) joys of gambling on the horseys, how to break someone's nose in gym class and How To Be A Man Goddamn It. While this is Murray playing a stock Murray role (grumbling, chain-smoking, combative ... but still loveable), it is still a commendable performance by him (he could do this for the rest of his career and I'd still be following along): he's miserable but content in his misery (and 'assisted' a bit by his pregnant prostitute girlfriend, played by Naomi Watts, very out-of-character). Murray's beloved curmudgeon carries this past its weak ploys for sympathy (Melissa McCarthy's broken marriage, Murray's stroke, the well-telegraphed "Saint" project). I'm going to assume the alternative view of a flawed but noble "saint" was 'inspired' by a very, very loose reading of Jean-Paul Sartre's lengthy examination of the life of Jean Genet.
