By Muhammad Muzammal

staff writer

Hollywood scribe Dan Fogelman’s directorial debut “Danny Collins” is a focused character piece with Al Pacino’s best performance in a long time. Starring in his first commercial film in years, Pacino delivers as the titular character, a successful pop artist wanting a connection with the son he’s never met (Bobby Canavale), all the while revamping his career with more enduring material.

After performing yet another concert on the final tour of his career, Collins returns home to an empty life of debauchery and partying. Collins’s manager/best friend Frank (a hysterically sardonic Christopher Plummer) gives him a letter from John Lennon that Collins never received. Collins sets out to the quiet suburban life of New Jersey, living at a Hilton hotel, near his son Tom.

Collins’s life-long dilemma of not having a healthy family relationship is highlighted most when he goes to visit Tom for the first time. Outside on his front porch, Tom confronts his father, telling him that despite his ADHD-stricken daughter and financial struggles, he is still happy – a word not uttered from Collins’s libertine lifestyle. But Collins pursues Tom, trying to right his wrongs, but in a larger sense, he tries to be there for the son he’s never seen for 40 years.

One of Collins’s confidants is the hotel manager Mary Sinclair (Annette Benning at her most Diane Keaton) who has a flirty “pattern” with him, but also cares about him, a missing presence in the fragile protagonist’s life.

This is how Fogelman wins the viewer over. As much as the film is structured like a lifetime movie (a chick flick for men, one viewer notes), Fogelman and Pacino give depth to what could’ve been a one-dimensional character whose life is too bothersome to watch and observe. 

Collins’ giving and caring persona, contrasted with the nasty, insincere world of show business, is held alive by the Lennon letter, but zeroed in on when Collins sees how precious and valuable the connection is to his son and how money simply can’t buy happiness.

Collins is persistent to give his granddaughter the care she needs and had even helped Frank quit drinking in the past. Strip the star of his glitz and a caring spirit remains.

All overdone themes indeed, but “Danny Collins” is done right and despite its corny, Hallmark lines and overly sentimental tone, the crowd pleasing film manages to be touching and moving.