I’m a big fan of ensemble pieces that have a big cast, and they all interact with each out quite nicely. Sometimes, though, just because these films have a big cast, they can be wasted by the script or slow nature of the story. That’s the case with Riff Raff. At first glance, you’d think it was a funny movie, and all these good character actors would work well together, but they don’t. They are just here to take up space in a slowly plotted film.

Vincent (Ed Harris) is an ex-contractor who is  married to Sandy (Gabrielle Union). She has a son, D.J. (Miles J Harvey) who’s a pretty smart kid. His stepfather and he get along well. Until his past catches up with him and his son Rocco (Lewis Pullman) from a previous marriage comes to visit him in his secluded house in upstate Maine. He also brought his girlfriend Marina (Emanuela Postacchini), who’s pregnant with their child and his mother Ruth (Jennifer Coolidge).  He’s running from a recent tragedy, but he keeps that information to himself. He says he wants his family to be reunited once the baby is born. There is more to the story than meets the eye, though. As the movie progresses, so does the backstory of all of these characters.

Dito Montiel, a musician and film director, has made some interesting films, but nothing that stands out too much. The fact that he was able to ensemble such a good cast as this for his film is pretty impressive. The story he and writer John Pollono were able to weave together is nothing special. I’ve seen this type of multi-layered story before. They were done much better than this movie was.  I’m very surprised this script and director combination drew such an eclectic and well-rounded cast.

A key event of the film and story is the narration by Miles J Hatvey. He was the main character telling the story from his perspective via voice-over narration. This gave the movie a little more depth and layering regarding the overall story. Being that he was a newcomer, it was harder for me to focus on him instead of one of the other more established characters telling this dysfunctional family story.  It may have made the film better from a narrative situation. It just kind of made the movie just another throw-away story than it other words could have been.

One of the things I noticed right away was that the director and script were trying to go for a funny aspect and threw in some vulgar language, specifically spouted by Coolidge’s character. She has a lot of nasty dialogue. It may have been ad-libbed, but it seemed quite genuine coming from such an acclaimed comedic actress. There was a bit of a harder edge to the story, but I could have seen it going much further. They should have just gone for it. It was too subtle for my liking.

The key to Riff Raff, the script and direction, is that they were going for an ironic storyline. The script kept that storyline mostly until the end, but by then, it was too little, too late. I didn’t care by that point. Sure, the characters and their family dynamic worked to some extent, but the twist didn’t work for me in the end. I wanted to be invested in the characters on screen, but the story didn’t give me enough to grasp onto until the film was about to be over. The ensemble is good  opposite one another, but I felt they were all going through the numbers except for Coolidge, who was crazy from the first moment she uttered a word.  Montiel had the makings of something interesting and fun, but it turned out to be bland, boring, and forgettable most of the time.

2 stars

Dan Skip Allen