MovieChat Forums > Knox Goes Away (2024) Discussion > Knox Goes Away, The Baker, The Retiremen...

Knox Goes Away, The Baker, The Retirement Plan and Fast Charlie -- The Same Movie?

posted 4 months ago by roger1 (3692)
2 replies | jump to latest

I suppose that note should continue to be taken of the fact that -- to service the still massive and active Baby Boomer population (in America, at least) -- "what Liam Neeson wrought" with Taken and his follow up thrillers has now been taken up but other "older male stars" -- the "old guy action hero movie."

Proving that Liam Neeson isn't entitled to all the fun, I take note of these three movies that have popped up recently on streaming:

The Baker: Old guy is Ron Perlman (age 74 as I post this in 2024)
Fast Charlie: Old guy is Pierce Brosnan (age 71 as I post this in 2024)
The Retirement Plan: Old guy is Nicolas Cage (a baby of 60 as I post this, but in The Retirement Plan he is done up in white hair and make-up to look older.)

In one way, these are what I call "paperback movies" -- the kinds of thrillers one buys for a quick beach or plane trip read with a desire to get the quirky good guy established, the bad guys to fight, the familiar storyline and the action climax. Done. Entertained.

Fast Charlie got some good reviews but mostly with this caveat(surprisingly the same, review after review): "It breaks no new ground and you've seen it before, but it is well written and acted and worth your time if you just want a little entertainment."

THAT's a ringing endorsement.

So: good action. Usually some good "other actors" in the film, for name value (Harvey Keitel is in The Baker, for instance and a VERY frail looking James Caan -- in his final role before his death at 82 -- is in Fast Charlie.)

But watching them all together over a few weeks, I was struck by a coupla things:

The Baker and The Retirement Plan are basically the same movie. BOTH were filmed in the Cayman Islands (I figure a financing deal for more than one movie was made there.) BOTH are about young adult sons or daughters bringing grandchildren to seek help from their tough old grandfathers against mob forces. BOTH show the old grandfathers having a "particular set of skills" against which to fight and kill younger, tougher opponents(the message is: if you HAVE those fighting skills, old age need not matter.)

I also think that that the VERY enticing beachside settings of The Baker and The Retirement Plan are "part of the package," ie: Wouldn't you like to live HERE? (By the beach, with a beachside bar to hang out at, and gorgeous views of the ocean, day and night.)

Jimmy Buffet passed away last year, but his son-of-a-son of a sailor spirit lives on in The Baker and The Retirement plan. And this: not only are both The Baker and The Retirement Plan filmed at the same place(the Cayman Islands) both BOTH movies feature Ron Perlman in a lead role: he's the star/good guy of The Baker(he plays a baker, natch) and he's the rather funny mob villain pitted against Nic Cage in The Retirement Plan. Evidently Cage and Perlman are friends and Cage did The Retirement Plan as a favor TO a friend.

Which leads us to Fast Charlie. Some elements are NOT shared with The Baker and The Retirement Plan. No grandchildren are dropped off for safekeeping, no strained relationships with adult children need to be addressed.

Rather, Pierce Brosnan's Gulf Coast "fixer" is a childess(as far as we can see) loner of a gunman who has reached his own retirement age, and would like to get out except...his dementia-ridden old employer James Caan needs some tending to and some protection from younger gangsters out to take over.

Rather than the Cayman Islands, Fast Charlie takes place largely in Biloxi, Mississippi(a former home of Jimmy Buffett in his youth, and near his birthplace of Pascagoula, Mississippi. So again, the Jimmy Bufffett seaside vibe helps keep this thriller easy to watch and inhabit.

Nice opening gambit: Brosnan is assigned to kill a bad guy , but his accomplice blows it by blowing off the target's head. ID is difficult. This takes Brosnan to the victim's ex-wife -- a very pretty younger-than-Brosnan actress named Morena Baccarin. Her character has an eccentric job skill(taxidermy) a good attitude about the criminal class she is adjacent to, and some good dialogue banter with Brosnan. Can this white haired old guy and this sexy younger woman get together. "Its too late," Brosnan tells her. Maybe.

Of the three movies, Fast Charlie feels the most meaningful and professional. It has a legitimate director -- Philip Noyce -- at the helm(he figures in the ads -- the maker of Clear and Present Danger!) And Pierce James Bond Brosnan even in older age is clearly a more handsome man than Ron Perlman(definitely) and Nic Cage(arguably.) Brosnan refashions his Irish accent into Southern-fried(as many actors from the British isles can do) and has fun with h is role.

Seeing James Caan in such a frail state -- his character needs oxygen and a wheelchair, did Caan as well? -- reminds us that for some old actors, the fantasy eventually ends. Its nice to have a Corleone no the screen one more time.

[–] roger1 (3692) 4 months ago

...and now I get to add one more, streaming within weeks of the ones above:

Knox Goes Away...with Michael Keaton.

This one TOO, opens with an adult child turning up at our old man assassin's door -- son, not a daughter(as in The Retirement Plan), but AS in The Baker(in which, as in The Retirement Plan, a granddaughter is also dropped off.)

Hollywood is famous for the same script floating around and getting re-written, or the same idea.

Some notes on the Keaton film:

ONE: The production quality - perhaps the budget -- seems better than that of the movies above. The Baker and The Retirement Plan have that "straight to streaming" quality -- though NO MOVIE can ever look as cheap as the gritty films of 70's again -- nowadays even the cheapest film at least LOOKS good on digital...though somehow the cheapness still shines through in the smallness of the production.

TWO: "More of a gimmick": Keaton's assassin(current, not retired) is not only OLD -- the movie opens with Keaton diagnosed by a doctor for doom: His memory -- already going -- is about to accelerate into full non-memory dementia in SIX WEEKS. So he only has so much time, and so much memory, left to save his son. The movie puts Keaton through high-tech scenes of his not knowing entirely what's going on around him -- his mind comes and goes with the images on the screen.

THREE: As The Baker has a "cameo guest star" in Harvey Keitel, "Knox Going Away" has a "cameo guest star" in Al Pacino. I suppose Pacino ranks as more of a bankable superstar(in his day) than Keitel, but the two old men now rather equate as a matter of cinematic gangster history. (Seeing as Fast Charlie got James Caan right before his death, that's both ANOTHER Godfather star and --a nice last one over the line for Caan.)

I recall a few years ago wondering what old men Hollywood would have to replace Hackman, Duvall, Nicholson, Connery and Caine as they aged into retirement and death(only Connery at the moment.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3692) 4 months ago

Well, they seem to be here now: Michael Keaton, Pierce Brosnan, Nicolas Cage...and I would add Jeff Bridges(on a TV show called The Old Man and having had survived cancer and COVID at the same time) and Kurt Russell. (Ron Perlman of The Baker is perhaps more of a supporting guy still than ever a star -- but he sure managed to overcome his ugly looks and to find macho charisma in HIS old age. In real life, he got one of those trade-up hot young wives, too.)

Not to mention Woody Harrelson...but he's rather still a top character star, now. Put Kevin Costner in that category , too. (Woody and Kevin worked in The Highway as old Texas Rangers on the trail of Bonnie and Clyde a few years back.)

Travolta has gone straight to video and a bald head in HIS old age. Tom Hanks is old now, but still a bankable leading man.

Hanks doesn't NEED to do one of these "old secret agent assassin kicks ass" movies...