Michael Schroeder’s slip of slop could have been a film fan’s delight. Knowing nods to His Girl Friday, Touch Of Evil and Citizen Kane spool through the tale of Flash Madden (Christopher Plummer), an ex- Hollywood gaffer turned to drink and truculence. Enter movie-mad LA brat Cameron (Michael Angarano), who solicits Flash’s frontline chops for a high-school filmmaking contest and gets an A-team of nursing-homers to assist his docudrama about mistreated oldsters. Cinephile heart in place? Sure, albeit earnestly so. But Schroeder’s chair-legs creak under the weight of contrivance, from his central friendship’s over-determined emotional arc to the marshmallow montages, ill-fitting jump-cuts and sagely sap dished from age to youth.
