Watching this progressively tedious comedic thriller, one’s mind is apt to wander, and to recall the better films and television series of the past from which it lifts.
The story device of the former stone-cold killer (portrayed here by Ed Harris) who trades in the assassin’s lot for that of the family man, which is this picture’s main thread, was done in a superior fashion in “A History of Violence” (2005). The doe-eyed and beautiful European woman who somehow manages to be at least slightly annoying, here incarnated by Emanuela Postacchini, brings to mind Maria de Medeiros in “Pulp Fiction” (1994). And this film’s good-hearted, moderately nerdy and slightly inept teen character, DJ (Miles J. Harvey), seems spun off from Steve Urkel of the TV show “Family Matters.” On top of it all is a pronounced Tarantino influence.
Directed by Dito Montiel from a script by John Pollono, “Riff Raff” sees a very motley group of criminals converging on the Maine sanctuary of the retired assassin who Harris plays, Vincent. (Harris also had a prominent role in “A History of Violence,” which amplifies the déjà vu vibes.) Despite the abundance of flashbacks and the complicated histories of the characters, the movie is largely a series of mini-standoffs both emotional and physical.
As Vincent’s first wife, Ruth, Jennifer Coolidge is an inexhaustible fount of vulgarity. She ultimately winds up as one of the main perpetrators of tedium. Bill Murray and Pete Davidson play hit men whose persistent slaying of ordinary citizens isn’t nearly as hilarious as Montiel seems to think it is. For all that, Harris and Murray are such reliably engaging screen presences that they provide a few glimmers of entertainment, provided you’re able to set aside the movie’s practically all-encompassing repulsiveness.
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