\n\tEasy\u2019s Waltz, the new film from True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto, makes good on about half the promise of its title. Pizzolatto keeps his film light on friction, ambling at an easy, lackadaisical pace. I\u2019m not sure the movie ever really waltzes, though. That would require more grace and timing, which Pizzolatto\u2019s script and direction only exhibit on occasion. Still, there is something charming in the way the film refuses to up its ante. It\u2019s like running into someone at a bar who\u2019s too tired to get up to say hello, so they wave you over to their table and sit you down for a meandering, ultimately pointless, but fitfully engaging story.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tVince Vaughn<\/a>, plodding and weary-eyed, plays Easy, a Vegas nightclub singer who\u2019s just trying to do respectable work in whatever venue will have him. His far jumpier, more hustling brother, Sam (Simon Rex), acts as his manager while cooking up other schemes on the side. Neither guy is making much traction, drifting further into middle age as purchaseless as they might have been 20 years prior. <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tEasy’s Waltz\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n \tA low-simmer character study, with music.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue: Toronto International Film Festival (Special Presentations) \n\tOpportunity comes in the form of a grizzled old Strip rat, Mickey Albano (Al Pacino<\/a>), who used to be a performer and now runs entertainment for the glitzy Wynn resort. He takes a shine to Easy\u2019s throwback style and offers him a big gig.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tBecause we\u2019ve seen movies before, we have a hunch that Sam, darting around his brother with dollar signs in his eyes, is probably going to screw things up somehow. He\u2019s chasing after Mickey\u2019s girl, Lucy (Kate Mara), for one thing, never a good idea when the other man in the equation is old enough to remember the mob days of Vegas.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tPizzolatto is only willing to ramp up the action so far, though. Things do go awry, there is a mild rash of violence, some people even yell for a brief moment or two. Otherwise, Easy\u2019s Waltz moseys unbothered through its retro vision of America\u2019s weirdest city, with its crooners and magicians, its barflies and tinted glasses-wearing bosses. It\u2019s all pleasant enough, but one wishes that something would get the movie\u2019s blood up just a little. Pizzolatto is perhaps overly determined to avoid any of the dark ornateness that so defined his three seasons of True Detective<\/a>. Maybe he\u2019s tired, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWhat is meant to energize the audience, I assume, is the music, an array of pop songs like \u201cI Wanna Dance With Somebody\u201d and Pat Benatar\u2019s \u201cWe Belong\u201d that have been slowed down to wistful effect. Easy isn\u2019t so much lounge lizard as lounge lamb; he\u2019s routinely kind and empathetic, a quality reflected in the sincere way he sings his songs. Vaughn has a great voice for karaoke, but his chops aren\u2019t quite credible as some of the best in Las Vegas (as is said about Easy\u2019s singing from time to time throughout the film). It\u2019s especially not believable when a snippet of one of Easy\u2019s performances goes viral on YouTube \u2014 Easy\u2019s Waltz is yet another film that seems to have a very limited understanding of what makes things pop online these days, but uses it as a plot device anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWhat really rescues the film from tedium are its jags of sharp dialogue and the laid-back smoothness of its performances. Vaughn is appealing in this passive, more sober mode, reminding us of his earlier work as a dramatic actor before all the antic Frat Pack stuff got started. Mara remains a welcome presence, warm and flinty at once, even if her character here is woefully underwritten. Pacino is doing something slightly more than autopilot; it\u2019s a pleasure to watch him take curlicue approaches to his line readings. Rex, only a few years into a pretty remarkable career reinvention, once again shows his prowess as a capable indie film actor.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s a good group, all careful to remain within the delicate bounds of Pizzolatto\u2019s understated framing. There\u2019s an offbeat amiability to Easy\u2019s Waltz that wouldn\u2019t have been possible had nearly every actor involved not been on board with the modest aims of its filmmaker. Only Mary Steenburgen, playing Easy and Sam\u2019s harridan mess of a mother, brings the theatrics, but I think that\u2019s more Pizzolatto\u2019s fault than Steenburgen\u2019s.<\/p>\n \n\tAs a director, Pizzolatto doesn\u2019t attempt much in the way of flash. Just the opposite, really. The technicals of the film can be clunky, especially its austere sound design. Some of the nightclub scenes play as if not a single cube of ice is clinking in a glass anywhere in the joint, no conversation is happening at a table just off camera. It\u2019s only the characters talking and the rest is silence. That gives Easy\u2019s Waltz a strangely amateurish vibe, as if Vince Vaughn and Al Pacino have somehow stumbled into someone\u2019s student film. <\/p>\n \n\tBut, hey, that\u2019s okay. If Vaughn, who co-starred on season two of True Detective, once told Pizzolatto about his love of singing and the filmmaker wanted to give him a platform to do that, that\u2019s a perfectly nice reason for a movie to exist. Easy\u2019s Waltz is a harmless, fleeting curio, a piece of ephemera that lilts by like a song that isn\u2019t quite catchy enough to get stuck in your head \u2014 it has the decency to do its thing and then leave us alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Easy\u2019s Waltz, the new film from True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto, makes good on about half the promise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[57952,49,48,75,337,74774,37340,58854,2559,13853,74775],"class_list":["post-138227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-al-pacino","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-niz-pizzolatto","tag-tiff-2025","tag-toronto-2025","tag-toronto-film-festival","tag-toronto-international-film-festival","tag-vince-vaughn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Cast: Vince Vaughn, Simon Rex, Al Pacino, Kate Mara, Cobie Smulders, Mary Steenburgen
Director: Nic Pizzolatto
Screenwriter: Nic Pizzolatto
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 43 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n