Welcome back to the blog readers. I saw the newest comedy 80 for Brady recently and I wanted to share my spoiler-free thoughts. Directed by Kyle Marvin and starring Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno and Sally Field, the film sees four friends in their 80s who decide to go to Houston to see their favorite team the New England Patriots and their hero Tom Brady play in the Super Bowl in 2017.
I want to get something off my chest before I start the review. I am a diehard New England Patriots fan, and my enjoyment or lack thereof (I'll get there) of the film has nothing to do with my being a Patriots fan. So I guess this is your disclaimer: this review is not biased in any way.
With that disclaimer out of the way, this film was so charming. Now I'm not saying this will win any Oscars or anything, but it is a very fun film. And this film avoids the major issue I had with a film like Ticket to Paradise; where as that film desperately tried and failed to be funny, 80 for Brady is genuinely funny. And I think that has everything to do with the four leads.
Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, and Sally Field are four uber-talented legendary actors. What they have done for cinema over their careers cannot be understated. So I can get at this point in their careers and their lives if they wanted to just have fun, and they do have a lot of fun. Their chemistry is insatiable and it leaves you wanting more from this crew in the future. They are genuinely funny, they don't even have to try. And I even enjoyed the supporting cast as well. Billy Porter and Guy Fieri have guest appearances and they are funny. And there was one person who showed up that completely killed me.
Of course, I would be remiss if I did not talk about the star of the film, the man the film is named after. Tom Brady himself has a guest feature in this film, and he is as glorious as ever. He's been around Hollywood during his career, also voicing himself in Family Guy and playing himself in Ted 2. He even enlisted his former Patriots teammates Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola and Rob Gronkowski, who cameo as themselves and get in some funny moments.
There is one moment I want to talk about, and I will be using spoilers for the film here only. SO THIS IS YOUR SPOILER WARNING. One of the funniest things about the film is when the ladies get to the Super Bowl after losing their tickets the previous day. One of the women finds the radio station hosts who ran the contest in which they "won" but a misunderstanding reveals the actual winners were the "Tom Brady Support Group." When asked if they are supporters of Brady, one of the hosts comes out and says that al four of their names are Tom Brady, and they formed a support group because they know they'll never live up to that name. That is pure comedic gold right there.
The film also has a lot of heart and emotion, something that good comedies don't really do right. This film sees the themes of mortality and aging and it is very effective. Now it obviously wasn't enough to make me cry or anything, but there was more emotion than I thought there would be. I personally love when films and television shows will touch upon the subject of mortality, because it can make for a compelling story.
To conclude my thoughts, 80 for Brady is a surprisingly charming and genuinely funny comedy that makes the most out of the chemistry of its four leads and delivers some much-needed heart and emotion. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you this weekend for my review of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and episode 6 of The Last of Us.
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