Riff Raff

Long, drawn out and cringe.

I almost feel sorry for Pete Davidson, but he's a dope that does dope.

A bunch of non engaging characters are cruel to each other and most of the people that they encounter. This is just bad wanna be Tarantino and Bill Murray's schtick is old and so is he. Trying to figure out what the point was. And Ed Harris getting it on with gorgeous Gabrielle Union made the skin on my body want to crawl off. Lots of drawn out scenes and Harris's character is such a dried up jerk I don't get what his appeal was. The dough black kid had a few funny lines, and the Italian gal was stunning, but this thing was 20 minutes too long. And twist I figured out in the first 15 minutes.

Vincent's New Year's Eve is turned upside down when his ex-wife, son, and pregnant girlfriend stop by unannounced. Suspicious of their motives, Vincent attempts to prevent his past from catching up with his second family. Unfortunately, as they ring in the new year, Vincent's past also shows up.

Based on the cast, this movie had the potential to be funnier. The story has potential, but there is insufficient backstory to captivate and engage the audience. With one hour and forty-three minutes of runtime, more of the time could have been spent setting up more punchlines. Fans of any of the cast members might find this movie worth a stream.

I went into this movie blind, having only seen the cast list and description. No Trailer. But a dark comedy with a great ensemble cast? Yes Please!

But the movie is sparse with comedy. Some light chuckles here and there. Some characters are just sad, like Coolidge. Everyone portrayed their characters very well though.

The story does a lot flash backs and time jumps. Almost everything is a cut away. It's not a novel story, it's actually very familiar. Actors play their usual tropes. Ed Harris moves on from his troubled past until it catches up to him.

Good use of scenery and music.

It's all well acted, well shot, but meanders without comedy. It was an entertaining watch. But a better script would have given the great cast more to do.

6.5*/10*

More reviews on my YT --GremlinLord615.

2025 thus far, seems to be on the trajectory for being the year of mediocre films, and Riff Raff is unfortunately added to this less impressive list. The cast alone grabbed my attention as I had no knowledge of its existence prior to its release, and the performances are solid across the board, yet I'm not convinced that the narrative needed such a bloated cast list. The film is a crime-thriller dark comedy, and here lies the problem. Riff Raff struggles to execute what it set out to be, the tone of the movie just felt weird, bouncing between tense dramatical scenes and quippy comedic moments all too often took me out of the experience. Don't get me wrong the characters are interesting, and some decent exposition is given throughout the story, but I felt this would have made a better mini-series instead of a film as its content feels all too crammed in. Plus, Fargo the TV show (2014) knocked it out of the park when it comes to juggling comedy and cinematic drama and I believe this is what the movie intended to achieve. If they took these exact same cast and characters and allowed more room for them to breathe, you could potentially have a banger of a season 6 under the Frago name - right actors/characters, wrong method. Overall, I was less than impressed with Riff Raff, it's not bad and produces some good characters but I felt they needed a lot more exploration to justify the climax.

After watching this movie I was left with a few questions. One of them being what kind of movie was this supposed to be? The bio says comedy/crime, but I thinks it fell short of that goal. Secondly, how could such a star studded cast come across as an average movie?

I'm not sure if was a script issue, casting issue, editing issue, or the director just didn't get the script, but I suppose my highest problem with the movie was that I had zero attachments to any one particular character. If anything Jennifer Coolidge stole the whole show, and gave it some semblance of a minor comedy.

It's almost as the movie was suffering from some type of identity crisis, in terms of not being one or the other. The trailer did its job enough for me to give it a watch, and the movie did have some great scenes, but I don't think the vision came out the way it was intended. It's an average movie at best, but given the cast, I was expecting something with a lot more to it. No meat, and all potatoes.