Just Getting Started
The resident manager of a retirement community (Morgan Freeman), long accustomed to being cock of the walk (in every sense), gets unwelcome competition from the newest resident (Tommy Lee Jones)—then the two must put aside their squabbling when Freeman’s former mob associates show up to try to rub him out. With this cast (also Rene Russo, Elizabeth Ashley, Jane Seymour, Joe Pantoliano, George Wallace and the late Glenne Headley), and with Ron Shelton writing and directing, we might have expected more than the standard geezer-fest out to snag seniors’ spending money—but as it happens, we don’t even get that much. The movie is a ghastly, ramshackle mess, lurching from gag to clunking gag and exacerbated by Barry Peterson’s harsh cinematography, making everyone look considerably older than they are.
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