Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.
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.
