Just Getting Started

I have to wonder what talented people like Morgan Freeman, Tommy Lee Jones and Rene Russo did to entertain themselves while filming Just Getting Started.  Here is a movie that almost seems like it was made to be forgettable.  There are no laughs, no originality to its plot (what little of a plot there is), and absolutely nothing happens until well past the hour mark.  And when things finally do happen, you kind of just want the movie to be over with.  Maybe this was a fun movie to make, but it's no fun for the audience.

This is writer-director's Ron Shelton's (Bull Durham) first movie in 14 years, though I can't imagine for the life of me what it was about this particular project that convinced him to return behind the camera.  It's a singularly unambitious product, content to revel in lazy gags and sitcom formula.  It has no edge, no desire to be better than it is.  It's like it's happy just to exist.  But, you just don't take time out of the busy and valuable schedules of Morgan Freeman and Tommy Lee Jones, and then have them do nothing but wander around a retirement community, making off color remarks and crude PG-13 level sexual innuendos.  You give them roles to play, you give them personalities, and for heaven's sake, how about an actual plot?  Again, I can only assume that the shoot was a total blast, because the movie itself gives them absolutely nothing to work with.

Freeman plays Duke, who as the film opens, is living the high life at the Villa Capri retirement resort in Palm Springs.  Not only is he the manager, but he enjoys sexual flings with the numerous oversexed ladies who live there, has a constantly flowing stream of cash, his own private parking space, and is basically treated as the king of the entire community.  Duke's status as the "main man" is shaken when Leo (Jones) arrives.  He's a world-traveling businessman who immediately takes charge of the entire resort, threatening Duke's hold on everyone.  Things get even more complicated when both men start competing for the attention of Suzie (Rene Russo), a corporate woman who has been sent to check how things are going at the Villa Capri resort, and possibly fire Duke.

The scenes depicting Duke and Leo competing for the lovely Suzie come across as a particularly uninspired retread of the Grumpy Old Men movies.  This alone is bad enough.  But then the movie makes an even more wrong-headed decision when it tries to become a comedic action thriller in the last half hour.  It turns out Duke has a past with some criminals who want him dead.  An over the top mob wife (played by an especially over the top Jane Seymour) spots Duke on TV, finds out where he lives, and then sends someone out to kill him.  This plot holds surprisingly little weight in the grand scheme of things.  Even when it's the central focus of the film, and Freeman and Jones are engaged in car chases and getting shot at, the tone of the movie is strangely calm and flippant.  The two men keep on insulting each other and taking comic jabs at one another, even when lives are potentially at stake.

There's just not a whole lot of effort on display in Just Getting Started.  Jones wears sunglasses in nearly every scene he's in, allowing him to hide his eyes and expressions for most of the film.  Freeman at least seems to be enjoying himself, but he's given so little to do that he leaves no impression on the audience.  And for some reason, Russo is forced to carry a little dog around with her at all times, under the mistaken impression that the dog constantly getting loose and causing trouble around the resort community will generate amusement.  All three of these actors are engaging enough to create interesting characters and interplay, but the movie never allows this.  I guess Shelton had them on a tight leash, and told them to stick to the script he had written.  Too bad.  I kept on waiting for the movie to let Freeman and Jones truly cut loose.

There is simply a shocking lack of substance here.  It didn't need to be made, and nobody needs to watch it.  Should you be unwise enough to buy a ticket for this, I want you to quiz yourself just a few days later, and see just how much you actually remember about what happened.  I can guarantee you that you will have forgotten most if not all of the film by then.  I know I'm going to be doing my best to forget this movie, starting right at the end of this sentence.

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