One Day as a Lion, 2023.
Directed by John Swab.
Starring Scott Caan, Frank Grillo, Virginia Madsen, J.K. Simmons, Taryn Manning, Marianne Rendón, Georgie Carroll, Billy Blair, Bruce Davis, and Dash Melrose.
SYNOPSIS:
Jackie Powers will stop at nothing to prevent his son from following him into a life of crime. With his mob employer in pursuit, a chance encounter at a roadside diner charts a new path.
John Swab is a busy filmmaker with plenty of collaborators for his projects, especially since One Day as a Lion is already his third directorial effort of the year. Regardless of who he writes alongside or entrusts writing the script to (in this case, the duty goes to leading man Scott Caan), there’s a recurring reaction to his films; he is interested in serious social issues that should absolutely be addressed but often comes at them from bizarre angles that feel confused in tone, plotting, and character.
The same feelings apply to One Day as a Lion, which follows a hitman named Jackie Powers (Scott Caan), who is not a tried-and-true proven criminal. He has taken an assassination job from longtime friend Dom Lorenzo (George Carroll) to quickly earn enough cash for hiring a lawyer to keep his teenage son out of jail following a kidnapping charge, where it’s immediately made apparent that he is out of his element as he has no idea how to execute his plan of killing J.K. Simmons’ debtor Walter Boggs, who throws off Jackie’s focus (not that there was much, to begin with) when he rolls up to a diner on a horse. There also happen to be two more unlucky souls in that establishment; disrespected and overworked waitress Lola Brisky (Marianne Rendón), at odds with her boss (Bruce Davis).
Fortunately, albeit rather darkly, Lola doesn’t have to worry about her manager anymore, as Jackie inadvertently puts a bullet in his head while trying to assassinate Walter. Unsurprisingly, Walter gets away, and now Jackie, who is unequipped to deal with just about every situation, has to figure out what to do with witness Lola.
Given there is some charm to Scott Caan’s performance as Jackie (accounting for the look and the wardrobe, it is somewhat like watching a knockoff of Ryan Gosling in The Nice Guys), perhaps it’s to be expected that once they learn about one another, they begin to fall for each other. Lola is a wealthy former actress who had to return home once her acting school shut down. Her terminally ill mother (Virginia Madsen) also emerges as a money source, but the relationship there is fractured, requiring a marriage before she inevitably passes on.
If you have tonal whiplash just from reading this review, now you know how I felt watching One Day as a Lion. What starts out as pulpy violence transitions into a story about connection and broken justice systems (there is reason to believe that Jackie’s son is innocent). However, that disconnect is already there and only continues as the other half of the narrative follows along with the crime aspect, now bringing in Frank Grillo’s mobster boss Pauly Russo to clean up the mess. There are also subplots involving Jackie’s train wreck ex-significant other Taylor (Taryn Manning) and a few scenes depicting young Billy (Dash Melrose) locked up and shy, intending to get viewers invested in the quest to hire a lawyer.
It wouldn’t be fair to say that One Day as a Lion started out making sense (it’s a movie where a woman starts falling for a guy even after watching him accidentally kill someone), but John Swab eventually tries to make points through preposterous turns of events. The grand climactic plan is so absurd and ridiculous that engaging with the film meaningfully is no longer possible. It’s also not the entertaining kind of ridiculous such as J.K. Simmons riding a horse in the middle of the street.
One Day as a Lion wants to say something about an important subject or two, but to do something like that, a filmmaker has to know what movie they are trying to make in the first place.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
