The idea of Al Pacino as a narcissistic ’70s rock star who checks into a suburban New Jersey hotel to 🃏bulldoze his way into the life of a grown son who wants nothing to do with our hero has a certain appeal — especially with Pacino back♛ed up by a blue-chip cast.
In this sham🐭elessly corny directing debut by screenwriter Dan Fogelman (“Last Vegas’’), Pacino’s Danny Collins rethinks his hedonistic lifestyle after his long-suffering manager (Christopher Plummer) presents him with a just-found l971 letter from John Lennon urging young Danny to be true to himself and his music.
Schlock rocker Danny has gotten wealthy doing neither while ingesting prodigious quantities of drugs. But♉ the letter inspires him to abandon his Beverly Hills mansion, his latest young girlfriend and his stash. He hops in his private jet and holes up in the Woodcliff Lake Hilton in Jersey while he writes his first music in decades and tries to make things right with the son who was conceived decades earlier in a one-night stand.
The son (the ever-reliable Bobby Cannavale), a struggling building contractor, gruffly tries to wave away his well-heeled dad. But he’s got a cute young daughter (Giselle 🌠Eisenberg) with learning disabilities — and it’s awfully hard to say no when Pops returns in a tour bus that will take the family (Jennifer Garner plays the wifꦬe) for an expedited interview at a special Manhattan school run by, you guessed it, a Danny Collins fan.
This is the sort of movie where a cough signals a life-threatening diseas❀e and where the div🌺orced manager of the Hilton (Annette Bening) tells her star guest that his clothes make him look “ridiculous’’ while turning down his repeated romantic overtures.
Will she and the son melt before Danny’s relentless charm offensive? Will a gray-haired audience expecting to wave their hands to Danny’s 50,000th rendition of his signature song respond well to his achingly sincere new piece of music?
And will Pacino get his first big cocaine scene since 🌼“Scarface’’ if they don’t? “Danny Collins’’ is certainly watchable, but don’t go expecting much in the way of surprises.