The Comeback Trail

The Comeback Trail is a remake of the 1982 action comedy of the same name. This remake is directed and partly written by George Galo, the director of Middle Men and 29th Street.

The film is about the film producer Max Barber (Robert De Niro), who has not been able to make successful films for a while. For financial support, he borrowed money from the mafia and now he owes money to criminal Reggie Fontaine (Morgan Freeman). When he learns that Duke Montana (Tommy Lee Jones) .the lead role of his new planned movie has a high life insurance premium, Max tries to have him die. He hopes to be able to use the money from Duke's life insurance to pay off the mafia. Unfortunately for Max, Duke keeps surviving all of his dangerous stunts.

This movie is nicely filled with information about how she used to make movies. For example, this film is fun for film fans who are interested in the information of films and what happens behind the scenes. Unfortunately, the film later turns more into a cartoon like the Looney Tunes Roadrunner and Wile Coyote, where the film producer always unsuccessfully tries to kill the actor in a deadly way. Thus the film loses its seriousness and looks more like a children's film. The film is so much more fun for a younger audience and older viewers who like childish humor. Apart from the comedy elements, the film also has a good drama aspect about two elderly men who are somewhat insecure about their life and career in the film world. Unfortunately, this aspect is also somewhat overshadowed by the film's comedy.

The acting is well done by the film cast. Robert De Niro is doing well as the film producer who always tries to kill his star player without success. However, this is not the best comedy in which he has appeared in recent years. Morgan Freeman has a smaller role in this movie, but it's nice to see him again in the role of a villain. Tommy Lee Jones knows how to carry this film, even though he only actually appears in the film halfway. He comes across as an older actor, who no longer plays in major movie roles. This is almost really the case for his real acting career, as he can now be seen more in smaller film roles.

The Comeback Trail deserves a higher rating than it gets at the moment (5.6 stars while I was writing this). Okay you will not die from laughing but it's certainly pleasant to watch. It's an easy movie to watch, well written, and with a great cast. Robert DeNiro, Tommy Lee Jones, Morgan Freeman, those are world class actors that almost never fail and they didn't in this movie. Add Emile Hirsch and Zach Braff to that cast and you get a movie full of talent and it clearly shows. To give this movie a negative review is just a bad judgement. As a comedy it's just lighthearted but not bad at all.

Not a great comedy, but certainly good enough for those fans of Tommy Lee Jones and Robert de Niro. Especially Robert de Niro has starred in lesser comedies in the past and however simple this comedy might be, it it still quite enjoyable, without getting big laughs though, because it is more amusing than straight forward funny.

The good: Tommy Lee Jones. If you love this actor (the older generation) then this movie is yet another example of this actor's wonderful CHARISMA.

More good: Robert de Niro and Morgan Freeman act well, (although they do not act at the best of their game), but I still did enjoy those two acting legends very much so. Both actors are not really suited for making comedies, but they are still quite amusing to watch.

The story: Robert de Niro (washed up producer, who only has made flops) is in debt by a gangster (played by Morgan Freeman). Robert de Niro decides to con the insurance by making a movie that will purposely kill the leading actor (Tommy Lee Jones) and reap the insurance benefits of the actor's death. Will he succeed?

Not sure why this has a rating in the 5's. I've seen much higher ratings for much worse. It's nothing amazing but it provided us with some silly slapstick predictable humour. It was an enjoyable simple movie. I'm finding it harder and harder to find funny movies these days. They seemed to have stop making comedies and many have the comedy tag added to them and they are far from comedies. Silly, lighthearted fun. De Niro and Freeman do a good job and Tommy was excellent too.

The Mash-Up of this movie is: The Producers meets Bowfinger.