Riff Raff (Dito Montiel, 2024, USA)

Riff Raff is the latest film from director/screenwriter Dito Montiel. Montiel is an interesting figure, a former punk rocker from Queens who has made a career helming independent films, largely garnering performances from top-notch stars along the way. Riff Raff is a crime-comedy with a star-studded cast including - among others - Ed Harris, Bill Murray, Pete Davidson, Jennifer Coolidge, Lewis Pullman, and Gabrielle Union. It would be very hard to have this level of talent in front of the screen and not succeed to some degree, and Riff Raff does succeed in a few different ways.

Set largely around a single country home (the film was shot in New Jersey) around the holidays, Riff Raff has a rather standard premise. Ed Harris, an old-school gangster who has started a new life with a new wife and adopted son, finds himself wrapped in his old life when his son from his prior marriage ends up killing the son of another gangster in a dispute over a woman. The rival gangster, played by Bill Murray, and his accomplice, played by Pete Davidson, gradually close in on Ed Harris's whereabouts, as the party-crashing Lewis Pullman arrives before with his pregnant girlfriend and Ed Harris's ex-wife, played by Jennifer Coolidge.

Riff Raff is a black comedy that keeps the comedy alive throughout, though there is real violence that occurs in the film. Montiel struggles a bit tonally throughout, attempting to strike a balance between the film's sense of humor while also showing that the stakes are life and death. This uneasy dance may alienate some viewers, who are turned off when the film descends into actual bloody violence, but it makes the film more interesting as a result. As an unconventional Christmas film, Riff Raff is quite a bit of fun and deserves a watch.

6/10