St. Vincent (2014)

ST. VINCENT  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Theodore Melfi
    Bill Murray, Jaeden Lieberher, Melissa McCarthy,
    Naomi Watts, Chris O'Dowd, Terrence Howard
Bill Murray plays a curmudgeon's curmudgeon, a disheveled misanthrope named Vincent, who rarely stirs from the reclining lawn chair in his crummy back yard except to go to the track or the bar. He owes money to everybody and his bank account's overdrawn, so when he's asked to babysit the kid next door for $10 or $12 an hour, he reluctantly agrees. The setup's obvious and you know the feel-good payoff is coming, but Murray's crotchety performance undercuts much of the sweetness. It turns out there's more to Vincent than anybody thinks, but like Bruce Dern's character in "Nebraska", he's way beyond the point where he cares, or expects anybody else to. He might have a heart in his chest cavity somewhere, but you'd never hear that from him, and even when Melfi starts plucking at the sentimental strings toward the end, Murray steers clear of them. W.C. Fields would approve.