The Comeback Trail

by Robbo

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Posted on 3 July 2021

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Rating -

The Comeback Trail is a 2020 American crime comedy film directed by George Gallo and written by Gallo and Josh Posner. It is a remake of the 1982 film of the same name by Harry Hurwitz.

It stars Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, Morgan Freeman, Zach Braff, Emile Hirsch, Eddie Griffin, Kate Katzman, and Blerim Destani. It has six producers and thirty-two executive producers.

The film follows film producer Max Barber (De Niro), who indebted to mob boss Reggie Fontaine (Freeman) is encouraged by his nephew and business partner Walter Creason (Zack Braff) to sell the only good script he had to rival producer James Moore (Emile Hirsch).

On the first day of shooting Moore’s lead actor dies in a stunt accident and lets him cash in on a huge insurance policy.

This gives Barber an idea to do the same. They take a horrible script called The Oldest Gun In The West and hire a washed-up cowboy actor, Duke Montana (Tommy Lee Jones) to play the lead.

Unable to kill Duke in a basic stunt, Max ups the stakes, putting Duke into ever more dangerous situations. And as Duke survives stunt after stunt, Max unwittingly starts making the best movie of his career.

My first impression of this film is that it’s OK, not great, but OK.

The whole premise of the film is interesting but most of the humour is of the slapstick variety with De Niro being the brunt of most of the failed attempts on Duke’s life. Seeing De Niro cartwheeling through the air after a gas explosion isn’t as funny as it sounds.

I did enjoy the film, like I said the plot is good, the acting is good, as you would expect from a cast like this but it just lacks something. It seems like it’s trying too hard to get laughs rather than let them happen naturally, a film that desperately wants you to like it and so gets bogged down in sentiment.

All in all it was a pleasant distraction but nothing to get really excited about.

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