Riff Raff

Ultra Violence, psychopathy and cruelty as entertainment.

Psychopaths are funny, see the brain splatter....

Yeah, nah, this is so 30 years ago, we've grown out of this shock phase and are demanding more intellect and smarts in our films and Dito Montiel gives us this.

The cast is of good quality, setting is good etc but, nasty piece of work crime boss long winded intricate but boring story, and a cast of loser characters just doesn't cut it anymore, and to be honest it never should have. Why are we putting this rubbish in our heads and letting our standards drop.

Instead of a quality work of drama (was it supposed to be funny?) these actors at the long end of their career are turning in this. It's all a bit sad.

After watching this movie I was left with a few questions. One of them being what kind of movie was this supposed to be? The bio says comedy/crime, but I thinks it fell short of that goal. Secondly, how could such a star studded cast come across as an average movie?

I'm not sure if was a script issue, casting issue, editing issue, or the director just didn't get the script, but I suppose my highest problem with the movie was that I had zero attachments to any one particular character. If anything Jennifer Coolidge stole the whole show, and gave it some semblance of a minor comedy.

It's almost as the movie was suffering from some type of identity crisis, in terms of not being one or the other. The trailer did its job enough for me to give it a watch, and the movie did have some great scenes, but I don't think the vision came out the way it was intended. It's an average movie at best, but given the cast, I was expecting something with a lot more to it. No meat, and all potatoes.

2025 thus far, seems to be on the trajectory for being the year of mediocre films, and Riff Raff is unfortunately added to this less impressive list. The cast alone grabbed my attention as I had no knowledge of its existence prior to its release, and the performances are solid across the board, yet I'm not convinced that the narrative needed such a bloated cast list. The film is a crime-thriller dark comedy, and here lies the problem. Riff Raff struggles to execute what it set out to be, the tone of the movie just felt weird, bouncing between tense dramatical scenes and quippy comedic moments all too often took me out of the experience. Don't get me wrong the characters are interesting, and some decent exposition is given throughout the story, but I felt this would have made a better mini-series instead of a film as its content feels all too crammed in. Plus, Fargo the TV show (2014) knocked it out of the park when it comes to juggling comedy and cinematic drama and I believe this is what the movie intended to achieve. If they took these exact same cast and characters and allowed more room for them to breathe, you could potentially have a banger of a season 6 under the Frago name - right actors/characters, wrong method. Overall, I was less than impressed with Riff Raff, it's not bad and produces some good characters but I felt they needed a lot more exploration to justify the climax.

This is kind of a farcical, black comedy. The characters have some life to them, but little depth or context It is reminiscent of a Fargo type story with the banal, the ordinary, sharing the story with extreme violence.

Because of the substantial lack of EARNED back story, most of the characters flat. Surprisingly, Ed Harris' new family dynamic comes across as flat and hollow. Jennifer Coolidge and Lewis Pullman steal the show with their performances. Bill Murray gets honorable mention...because he's Bill Murray, and I'd watch him read the dictionary. But, he's not that funny here, and is trying to play a straight character...who is put into black comedy situations.

If you're going to see a "Bill Murray movie" then you're going to be disappointed on many levels. But, it's not a complete waste. Although, I'm not sure it was worth his gonzo promotion campaign that included eating super hot chicken wings on First We Feast (although that interview was pretty good).

I don't typically write reviews, but I felt compelled to after spending $10 to rent this on Xfinity-a transaction that really pisses me off as I hate giving them money. While listening to Joe Rogan, Bill Murray discussed his three upcoming movies, saying Riff Raff stood out as a banger. I strongly disagree - it's anything but a banger. In fact, it's among the most worst films I've seen in a while. With a solid cast, I'm at a loss for how trash it turned out. If you're inclined to spend your time on it, go for it, but wait until it's free to watch - the storyline and overall execution was tired.