Imagine you go to the movies to see Bill Murray and Pete Davidson. They're in the trailer, they're on the poster, they're on your social media. And then they're in... three scenes? Welcome to Riff Raff, a film that proves marketing departments have taken over the screenwriting.
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Disclaimer: Apropos Magazine received access or a review copy. As always, we share our own impressions — unfiltered.
Six stars
It all starts out promising. Bill Murray shows up as a tired, philosophical bartender with one good line and two minutes of screen time. Pete Davidson looks like himself and says something half-funny. Then they disappear. And we're left with a film reminiscent of a Zoom recording of a screenwriting course in Los Angeles.
Riff Raff tries to be an indie gem -- with half-sloppy camera angles, jazzed underlay music, and characters who talk as if they're always just finishing a poem. But something is missing. Heart, direction, reason to stay seated.
The plot? A former petty criminal tries to make up his life as his past -- and a collection of uncommitted supporting characters -- threaten to catch up with him. There's not much riff, and even less raff. It all smacks of an idea that should have stayed on the whiteboard in the writers' room.
The most annoying thing is that the movie by, it doesn't have that much to offer. So it beckons with the names. Bill Murray! Pete Davidson! Come and laugh, come and feel! But what you get are little cameos and long scenes with no pulse. It's a bit like buying concert tickets and then it turns out that the main name only plays one number -- acoustic.
There are some bright spots. The photography is beautiful at times, and a couple of the smaller actors actually try to give life to what they've been handed. But it drowns in empty indie-pretentious wannabe-magic realism. You don't feel seduced, just... sold.
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Let's just put it like this...
Riff Raff is a product of its time: A film that markets itself as something it is not and bets that we won't discover it until after the credits roll. It's movies like this that make one consider watching trailers blindfolded.
2 out of 5 stars
