Movie Review: ‘St. Vincent’

St Vincent Movie Review
Bill Murray and Jaeden Lieberher in ‘ST. VINCENT’ (Photo © 2014 The Weinstein Company)

FYI: If you want to play a little game while reading this review (and you’re at home, of age, and not responsible for any minors at the time), here’s a fun thing to do: Every time you read “About a Boy”, enjoy a drink of an adult beverage. Just saying. Now on with the show …

Do you remember About a Boy? The 2002 movie, I mean. Not that recent attempt at a TV reboot (maybe it’s still on … hell if I care). Well, if you don’t remember the movie, you should. It’s lovely, and while I wouldn’t call myself a big Hugh Grant fan, his particular charms work quite well in it. As do those of Rachel Weisz but that’s a whole different set of emotions.

Getting back on topic, Grant plays a rich, spoiled, narcissistic loner who thinks his life is as full as anyone’s should be; full of trips to the hair salon, playing pool, and watching witty British game shows. Of course, as these things tend to go, what it really means is that he’s missing the point and that true happiness is found in connecting with the people around you, not in purchasing the newest piece of gadgetry.

Enter a young Nicholas Hoult (who couldn’t have been less predictably cast years later as one of the X-Men). Hoult plays a young boy of a single mother (Toni Collette) and he’s having a tough time fitting in at school. The two outcasts make an unlikely friendship and instill confidence in each other. By the end of it all, Grant is up on the school stage trying to save Hoult from an embarrassment of legendary proportions, and everyone lives happily ever after in this new mish-mash of a family unit. Heck the final scene is a lovely Christmas meal together. I don’t normally like spoiling things but this will eventually make sense.

Now, you may be wondering, why in the hell is this looney toon (me) going on and on about a movie from over a decade ago when the review is clearly supposed to be about the new Bill Murray film, St. Vincent? Well, it’s because I’d happily sign a petition to have the new Murray movie donate a large chunk of its proceeds to the fine folks who made About a Boy. They’re basically the same movie … only I’ll keep re-watching Hugh Grant’s film time and time again because it’s actually good. “Not so” Spoiler Alert: St. Vincent is “not so” good.

This is a shame because I love Bill Murray and having watched a trailer a few months ago, I was hoping this would be a happy 2014 surprise. Sadly, the surprise is that it’s not Melissa McCarthy’s fault. The tone of the movie fluctuates wildly, at times going for something a bit dark while more often than not limiting itself to crass and transparent setups. Young Jaeden Lieberher plays the Hoult role here and he does fine enough. Really, the whole cast didn’t go too far wrong, aside from whoever thought it was a good idea to have Naomi Watts play a pregnant Russian stripper/prostitute complete with a full attempt at an accent.


No, the real problem here is that I spent most of the time wishing I had just stayed home and watched another movie entirely (About a Boy to be specific). Pretty much every plot point I described above was just lifted into the St. Vincent script, with the names changed to protect the innocent of course.

And here’s the kicker, the feature-length movie isn’t necessarily the worst part of the experience. Prior to watching St. Vincent, the audience was held hostage/treated to a Lexus short film (ooh product placement) called Operation Barn Owl or something like that (I honestly don’t care if I got that wrong). This short “film” is literally the cinematic definition of the word “hipster” and is 12-ish minutes of pure hell, including far too many minutes of credits for the poor souls who spent effort making it. Seriously, it’s awful. Not sort of bad. Not bad. AWFUL. I was seconds away from walking out of the theater and foregoing the feature because I’ve got better things to do with my time than be forced to watch a tacked on passion project before a mediocre and hackneyed feature. (Yeah, yeah. First-world problems.)

So, I think you get my drift. Don’t see St. Vincent. You can watch almost any other Bill Murray movie and come out a winner. If the plot interests you, go watch About a Boy. If it doesn’t, stay home. I’m sure you have better things to do than waste $64 on a movie no one should remember next week, let alone next year.

Oh, and About a Boy, About a Boy, About a Boy. (No, I don’t care about your liver.)

GRADE: D

St. Vincent is rated PG-13 for mature thematic material including sexual content, alcohol and tobacco use, and for language.