St. Vincent

This movie is a touching story. It is about a boy who befriends a crusty curmudgeon in Vincent (Bill Murray) and discovers some facts of life. But the deeper story is that family is really the friends you choose and the wide cast of misfits are brought together by a mix of circumstances and events. They are lost but then are found. The story also showcases the lost heroes of Vietnam. These veterans are dying off and as a nation we have forgotten their contributions in this senseless war. The boy is the glue to the cast and he bridges the gap from the wide differences between the characters. I would highly recommend if and is sure to conjure up a tear or too. A real good feel movie that shows how saints are everywhere, everyday, check out St. Vincent. Bill Murray is a masterful actor that becomes the character,

Vincent MacKenna (Bill Murray) is a drunken grumpy gambling Vietnam vet. He has run out of money. He can't even pay pregnant Russian prostitute Daka (Naomi Watts) for her regular visits. Divorced Maggie Bronstein (Melissa McCarthy) and her son Oliver move in next door. Zucko (Terrence Howard) is looking to collect debts from Vincent. Oliver gets picked on in school. Vincent wants to be paid for babysitting and they build a surprising friendship. Brother Geraghty (Chris O'Dowd) gives Oliver's class an assignment to determine if someone they know deserves a sainthood.

Bill Murray is getting good at playing these grumpy characters. The little kid is good and cute but not too cutesy. Melissa McCarthy takes a nice simple dramatic turn. Naomi Watts should probably drop the Russian accent. I also love Chris O'Dowd's character. There are a couple of twists that I especially like. I like that Oliver makes friends with his bully. I also like that Oliver's father doesn't turn out to be evil. There are some good laughs. There are some sections where I feared that the movie would turn too sentimental. It does try hard to be a tear-jerker. The movie mostly succeeds in giving a great family of characters.

St. Vincent, starring Bill Murray as Vincent, asks us to define the qualities of a saint, while we enjoy the decidedly unsaintly Vincent. He defines curmudgeon, a cranky old misanthrope unhappy with his life and ready to dress down practically anyone who talks to him. The film itself is an amusing character study with unanticipated turns.

But don't think you can write the script because Vincent and the motley crew of his life have surprises that do not fit the usual bitter old guy formula. The saving grace is the honesty Murray invests in the role, which requires him also to display caring characteristics not immediately apparent. That we are probably spying into the eccentric character of Bill Murray through Vincent is an added treat.

The catalyst for the clichéd curmudgeon turnaround is a new pre-teen next door neighbor, Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), who is thrust on Vincent for after school babysitting by med-tech mom, Maggie (Melissa McCarthy). While the bonding is to be expected, Vincent and Oliver do a long dance before any saintly traits emerge. Yet Oliver learns what saints don't ordinarily do, like fight and gamble. As we learn, those aren't necessarily negatives.

Although Naomi Watts' Russian hooker is a bit over the top in beauty and heart of gold categories, she manages to project a simple love for Vincent, a symbol for everyone who loves Vincent even as rough as he is. Although Vincent could be loved for only his Vietnam experience, he does low-key, un-Mother -Teresa-like acts of kindness that could qualify him for sainthood.

That's the important theme of this tragicomedy: Being good, loved, and saintly are within the grasp of the most common among us, implying that imperfection is a constant of being human and maybe a bigger credential than piety when that sinfulness is transformed into good deeds.

St. Vincent is an entertaining film with a well-worn message, but Bill Murray, in his finest role since Lost in Translation, transforms it into holiness.

BY RYAN C. SHOWERS

If you have seen the trailers for "St. Vincent", you probably think avoiding it at all costs is the best option with the film's release. The judgmental thoughts I had with the previews were: recycled storyline, serious actors taking "lesser" roles, and award season junk. But that really wonderful thing happened to me while watching "St. Vincent" where all my preconceived notions dissolve and the film revealed proffers an sweepingly enjoyable time at the movies. It looks like every area of the film could be a disaster, but mostly everything in the new comedy moves fluidly.

Three or four times, "St. Vincent" really stumbles, completely misfiring an already risky move. The first of these blunders is when Vincent fights a group of punks bullying Oliver in an alley-- even the trite set-up of the scene sounds like its asking for criticism. The whole screenplay has a sense of predictability, but director Theodore Melfi makes your see past the stale clichés and reminds you why audiences were so moved by these overused plot devices for years and years. (Melfi's directing is well completed, shooting and editing the film adequately.) Accepting the screenplay's banal set-up will allow you to see the acutely written dialogue in "St. Vincent". The film's climatic pay-off is the best example of vigorously written, directed, and acted dialogue through a speech recited by Oliver.

A selling point for any comedy could be the ability to make the viewer really laugh. Not giggle, not smile from the film's cleverness, but an erupting, uncontrollable laughter that captures your mind in bliss. Time after time, "St. Vincent" made me laugh like this, out loud. It runs the gambit over all methods of comedy: physical gags, one-liners, banter between actors, situational comedy, and awkward moments. The actors and execution are responsible for creating comedy where there may not have been any to begin with, yes, I'm looking at you, Naomi Watts.

At first sight, Watts made me laugh to myself thinking, "Man, 'Diana' really did a number on her career options, huh?", but the more Watts got to flesh out the character, the more she made me chuckle, and the more I saw her commitment to the obnoxious role. She throws herself into territory where she usually does not trend, as does her co-supporting actress Melissa McCarthy. McCarthy gives the performance with the most value, cranking this character out of the park. She radiates her dramatic talents to extents only hinted at in her more serious roles like Sookie in "Gilmore Girls". Get McCarthy out of films like "Tammy" and "The Heat", and let her pursue roles in which she can create a real person, like she does here.

Bill Murray has been the actor hailed by critics and the selling point of the picture, and he brings exactly what you would expect he would bring to the role: perfect comedic timing, a faultless empathy to the scumbag, and movie star strength to carry the project. But who brings a movie star power more than anyone is newcomer Jaeden Lieberher, who transcends past typical annoying children archetypes.

"St. Vincent" is a sweet, lovable film that grows on you with each passing laugh. It's the most I have shamelessly laughed at the cinema all year.

* * * 1/2 / * * * *

Bill Murray can mug with the best of them and in this film he is pretty much the whole thing. Playing a Vietnam vet, Vincent, who has seen better times, he parlays his drunkenness into opportunity. The film begins with him totally wasted, backing his car, an old woody convertible, over his picket fence. The next day, a couple of Hispanic movers bringing a middle aged woman (Melissa McCarthy) and her son to their new digs, damages a tree branch. Murray uses this to threaten her with a law suit unless she pays up. It's obvious that she doesn't have much money. It turns out that she and her son are escaping her husband, a philanderer, and the two are on the road to divorces. What ensues is a relationship that grows out of necessity as Murray is enlisted to look after the boy, Oliver, at significant cost to the mother. The kid now becomes a part of Murray's daily forays into irresponsibility: bars, horse track, joy riding, etc. He also brings the child to a hospital where his Alzheimers stricken wife lives. Murray is devoted to her, even though he has an ongoing thing with a Russian hooker, Naomi Watts, whom he may have impregnated. She has the heart of gold in a combative personality. The boy, Jaeden Liebehrer, is a gem of an actor. He has this fatalistic sense to him. He knows he will remain the perpetual victim, but when Vincent comes into his life, he begins to absorb tools to try to get by. Mom works sixteen hour shifts and has no idea of what goes on after Murray picks the boy up from school. What is heartening is that nothing is simple here. Murray continues his bad ways almost throughout, but we know he has a marshmallow center. With all the darkness in the world, give this one a shot.