Fast Charlie

This is the farthest thing in the cinematic firmament from a world-changer you can imagine, but as an evening’s entertainment, it’ll more than do.

Caan is notably frail in appearance, but he gives a forceful, funny, warm and strong performance in one last tough-guy role. Brosnan is a graceful and generous screen partner. Seeing these two veterans effortlessly nailing their scenes is the best thing about this movie.

Phillip Noyce’s thriller starring Pierce Brosnan in the title role has the irreverence of an Elmore Leonard tale, leavened with generous doses of sentiment.

Watching Brosnan shoot a henchman’s earring off from 20 feet away is fun and all, but the real pleasure of Fast Charlie has less to do with such “he’s still got it!” theatrics than it does with the slow-boiling idea that, for Charlie and Marcie, the best might still be yet to come.

You’ll spend the next 90 minutes finding out, and for the most part that’s a brisk and painless journey that romps merrily along, powered by its own cliches and memories of better movies, in a way that’s more comfortingly familiar than wearisome.

A bit of an odd one, an action-comedy throwback that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. Still, it bodes well for Pierce Brosnan’s new phase as a grey-haired action star.

(Mauro Lanari) "We might have one foot in the grave, the flies might already be buzzing around us but, before croaking and getting taxidermized, we of the old guard believe we still have something to teach you punks". Intergenerational conflict translated into pure metacinema: indeed, why should the younger ones know how to tell the story of old age better? We're in the territory of "The Comeback Trail" (Gallo 2020): gerontophilic action? No: a dark comedy that oozes irony against everyone and everything, but joking, yet not too much. Caan died of coronary artery disease shortly after completing his part of the filming, and then Brosnan shared photos of him on set; Costner and Cranston, who had been interested in starring in it, are thanked in the end credits. A Tarantino stripped and drained of prolixity and excess, the Coen brothers of their debut diptych ("Blood Simple", 1984, and "Raising Arizona", 1987), back when they still seemed to be the forerunners of the Farrellys and before they became champions of the nihilistic intelligentsia. A touching, totally out-of-date sense of modesty. FIAT had no longer been Italian since 2021, and it's a pardonable mistake.

This was alright, not particularly as thrilling as I was hoping. It was kinda comical to watch Brosnan struggling with that yankee-doodle accent that seemed rather intermittent! I was hoping for a bit more action, I guess.

I couldn't get through more than 10 minutes of this movie. The dialogues are poorly written - they are not smart and are boring. I didn't expect Pierce Brosnan to fall so low...

Unfortunately, this film is anything but worth watching. It's rare that I regret my decision and turn it off after 15 minutes. But that's the case with this film. The dialogue is shallow and superficial, driving the viewer away. The characters lack depth, and the story is boring and tedious.