Watch Danny Collins For Free

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

For having a relatively low budget, the film's style and overall art direction are immensely impressive.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The character appears to be one with designs on becoming a serious singer/songwriter in the folk realm back in the day, only to have his first album produce horrific sales numbers so the studio has him sing pop songs written by other professional songwriters. In this area he apparently achieves huge fame as a pop singer, yet he spends the movie referring to himself as a "rock star". I cannot find any parallel artist in the real world who sings other people's songs, yet is called a rock star. Rock stars front bands and/or write their own material. Pop stars sing melodies that were written to sell music to simple people. I've also heard folks say that Neil Diamond is a potentially similar artist, but as wretched as some of his music is (and some is awesome), he wrote the vast majority of what he performs. I just don't get what reality this character lives in or comes from. 90% of this movie is based on a faulty premise and the other 10% is hokey formula stuff.

Regular readers of my film reviews and blog will know that one of my very favourite actors is Al Pacino. I make no claim that he is the finest actor to ever appear on the silver screen, indeed many of his performances are way over the top; but I don't care - I love him. Any movie that Al Pacino stars in is fine in my book - he always lights up the screen, always turns in unforgettable performances, and invariably takes a mundane story and makes it magical.And so it is in Danny Rose, where Al Pacino plays an ageing pop star who can still fill stadiums by singing the same banal songs that he made famous some 40 years earlier. Most of his devoted fans have grown old with him and we see rows and rows of women of a certain age all screaming and whooping whenever he appears on stage. I am trying to think of similar performers in real life, and maybe the likes of Barry Manilow or in the UK, maybe Cliff Richards might fill the bill. But dear old Danny is far more of a caricature than a real life person, and unlike Manilow and Richards, none of his 40 -year old songs have any merit whatsoever, and he really isn't a very nice person.But then something happens that is actually based on a true story. His manager, (the excellent Christopher Plummer in one of his last roles), tracks down a letter that was sent to Danny in 1971 by John Lennon, but which Danny never received. Lennon had sent him some advice about his songwriting and suggested they meet up. Danny is shocked and traumatised as he wonders how his life might have changed if he had received the letter. He is suddenly hit with the realisation that he has been a drunken ass-hole for most of his life; that he is kidding himself if he thinks that his gorgeous, sexy fiancé, one-third of his age, could really care for him, and the fact that he hasn't written a worthwhile song in more than 40 years. He decides to abandon his moneymaking tour (which we later discover was to be his retirement pension) and move into a suburban New Jersey hotel and track down his long lost son who he has never met.There is some wonderful, tender interplay between Pacino, his son's wife and daughter and later his son, who hates him with a purple passion. There are also some amusing, touching scenes with Pacino and his fiancé, (who receives Danny's blessing to cheat on him), and with the female hotel manager and two of the hotel staff. To be honest, the story is a little on the clichéd side, and some of the events are predictable - but not all. There are some blatant attempts to extract a few tears from us as fatal health issues are dragged to centre stage - but not for Danny… Without Pacino, this movie would probably die without much fanfare, but as ever, he lifts it out of the ordinary to a higher plane. Along with Plummer, Jennifer Garner as his daughter-in-law, and the excellent Annette Benning as the hotel manager, they made a corny story it into an excellent movie treat. Hollywood and Pacino oiling the movie wheels to perfection.

Contains Spoilers! Danny Collins is gem that didn't get its due on release. But discovering it on DVD is like finding lost treasure. A film about personal redemption. And about how we forget the people who matter while we climb up on our ladder of success. But at the end of the day when the arc-lights fade and age is a daily battle - what matters is the family and the friends you have made. After all it's the journey that's important and not the Destination. Pacino sizzles as a rock-star with the one hit who is caught between being true to his art and to himself OR continue to make money singing at sold-out venues to people who don't want anything new. And when the mind becomes a war-zone he decides to make amends and reach out to the only family he has but never met for 18 years! Brilliant casting and performances by everybody. Plummer and Pacino as buddies/talent- manager share great chemistry. And so does Annette Bening and Pacino. This is not the "in your face loud dialogue spewing animated" Pacino - but a charming old rock-star in a controlled performance. This movie needs to be seen!! And then let its warmth engulf you in an embrace that will make you sniff and smile

Based on an unlikely but true story, Dan Fogelman's "Danny Collins" explores the paradox of the aging rock star. When rock'n'roll began in the mid 1950s, it was, in large part, a reaction against not just old people and all they stood for but the very concept of growing old itself. Rock was consciously and specifically an art form by and for the young - indeed, a celebration of youth itself. But as the rock stars themselves began to fall victim to the inexorable march of time, they found themselves looking more and more ridiculous, desperately trying to stay relevant in a youth-obsessed culture that had already moved on without them (the expression, "Never trust anyone over thirty," popularized in the hippie era, quickly fell out of fashion once the people uttering it began to hit their 40s and 50s).Danny Collins is the prototypical has-been rock star, still clinging to the accoutrements of the roadie lifestyle despite his advanced age. He performs retrospective concerts to an audience of basically ex- groupie "golden girls" who only want to hear his old stuff, lives with a woman half his age, and spends most of his days and nights liquored up and high on cocaine. But one day, when he is informed that none other than the legendary John Lennon wrote him a personalized letter back in 1971 (one Danny never received), Collins decides to take stock of his life, putting an end to all his self- destructive behavior and making amends for relationships lost and opportunities missed. The latter include traveling to New Jersey to finally connect with the grown son he has never met, naively hoping that the embittered young man will welcome his absent father into his life after all these years, no hard feelings and no questions asked.Despite a rather trite and predictable narrative arc, "Danny Collins" rises above its clichés thanks to incisive writing by Fogelman and superb performances by Al Pacino, Annette Benning, Christopher Plummer, Bobby Cannavale, Jennifer Garner and a young actress named Giselle Eisenberg. Pacino, in particular, imbues a potentially stock character with so much subtle layering that he single-handedly makes the movie worth watching.And, oh, by the way, it goes without saying that the Lennon-laden soundtrack is a real treat - no matter one's generation or age.