One Day as a Lion

This movie is really refreshing, with a weird humour, turning up from weird situations with weird characters who aren't really what they want to appear.

With the result that what they intent to do never really ends up as planned.

These kind of movies are pretty rare, succeeding to walk on a razor blade on the edge of ridicule, you never know what you should take seriously and what to just laugh about.

Some scenes have great word battles, between Frank Grillo and J. K. Simmons, Scott Caan and George Carroll, the way they talk is hilarious, they want to be clever and cool, and they end up dumb and emotional, these contrasts make the main characters turn out to be somehow likeable despite the fact they are all losers and pretenders.

And then there is Marianne Rendón, who works as a barmaid, when her mother has become very rich by marrying 4 rich men who happen to die quickly. The mother thinks her daughter is a looser too, because she dreamed to be an actress and went to Costa Rica to learn acting. Really ? You get the kind of auto-derision in which the script swims ?

It turns out that in real life, Marianne is a great actress, and she showed it twice, and at the end of the movie in a most emotional way that made even the other actors in the scene stop her from continuing her show. She made me feel sorry and laugh at the same time.

Though it could have been a little better, I would say longer, yes the good time I spend with this movie felt a bit short, short and intense.

The ONLY reason I decided to watch 'One Day as a Lion', was a glimpse of hunky Scott Caan in his underwear - with that gorgeous body - in the trailer!

I got to see more than enough of Scott's great body to satisfy me. His character, Jackie Powers, also turned out to be the only character in the film I cared about. The rest of the characters were all weak and unbelievable. And speaking of unbelievable, the premise had me raising an eyebrow on several occasions.

So, Jackie's thirteen year old son Billy has been imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, but everything about his son were so vague that I didn't fully grasp as to what the actual circumstances were. Jackie was asked by Pauly (Frank Grillo) to kill Walter Boggs (J. K. Simmons), who owes Pauly a great deal of money. Being an amateur - and a good guy - Jackie misses his target but accidentally kills a cook at a restaurant. He then kidnaps the waitress, Lola (Marianne Rendón).

Lola has a back story of her own. Her wealthy mother has cancer, and Lola can only inherit if she is married, so she helps Jackie, and tells her mother they are engaged. Nothing about this set-up was believable and can off course only work in a comedy that makes no sense... if that makes any sense...

As it turns out, Pauly didn't really want Walter dead; he just wanted to scare him. Ok, so now the story makes even less sense. What if Jackie succeeded? Surely Pauly didn't know Jackie was going to miss his target?? Oh, and speaking of Pauly, this was one of the worst characters ever! This was one of the weakest antagonists I've ever seen in a crime film - or any film for that matter. All this guy did was sit around swearing, stand around swearing, walking talking swearing... Every third word coming out of his mouth was f..k this, f..k that! And why was a physical actor like Frank Grillo cast as Pauly when this guy did absolutely nothing but talk-talk-talk-talk. There was not a single fight scene involving this antagonist.

Speaking of casting choices; why was Oscar winner J. K. Simmons cast as Walter? What on earth made him accept this part? He needs a new agent. Frank Grillo as well. Jackie was the only character keeping everything together, and I thought Scott Caan was well cast in this role.

There's some feel-good emotion here and there, but in general the film is just too ridiculous to matter. If it wasn't for Scott and his awesome body, 'One Day as a Lion' would have been a complete waste of time. The film became so preposterous towards the end that it was almost unwatchable. And all that foul language... no, thanks!

Jackie Powers (Scott Caan) is pushed into a hit on Walter Boggs (J. K. Simmons). He misses badly and kills the cook instead. He takes waitress Lola Brisky (Marianne Rendón) who is the only witness. His son is stuck in jail.

Scott Caan is trying his hand at writing. It's a bit of hit-and-miss. This one is trying to be a sly crime drama. The studio declares this to be an homage to Tarantino and the Coen brothers. That may indeed be the target, but it falls short. The dialogue and the flow need more work. It's a little rough. I do like these actors, even Frank Grillo, but they do struggle with the script.

This felt like a cross between a high-school drama class production, and a vanity project for writer and lead actor Scott Caan to have his shirt unbuttoned or off wearing only underwear as much as possible. The writing, and especially the dialogue, was borderline infantile, and I'd say at least 80% of it was nonsense filler. There were only a few hits at humor, but it was mostly misses. The story did have some heart to it, but it was down-played and overshadowed by a lot of nonsense. Even Caan naming his character Jackie Powers was borderline cringe. Grillo's and Simmons' talents were underutilized and they both deserve to be in better films. Although they were the draw to this film, Marianne Rendon as Lola shined the most, and stole every scene. She was the only reason I even finished the film, because her character and performance were outstanding, and the reason I'm being generous with my 6/10. Swab's directing was decent given the flaccid script he had to work with, but with a more experienced screenwriter, this film could've been great.

I guess the other negative reviewers , were seeking some golden globe type of movie , based off the cast members in this production . This movie never tries to be that , even the trailers inform the audience that it's made FOR FUN . It doesn't imply that it's to be taken serious , it's just FOR FUN . So if you are looking for a FUN time , escapism type of movie , that's relaxing and FOR FUN , then this my friend is for you . 7 stars from me . I thoroughly enjoined this movie . I can only guess that those viewers who expected some major piece of art , based the cast , have never heard of an actor simply shooting a movie for a friend , that's not going to win themselves nor the flim an Academy Award. They do them FOR FUN .