Despite clocking in at just 103 minutes, Dito Montiel’s family crime thriller Riff Raff is an exceptionally long film. Its stellar cast delivers excellent performances in a film that takes too long to get going, reveals little or confronts little once it gets going, and uses none of its story’s twists to build on its dramatic themes or tedious humor. As secrets from the past haunt a father and son, threatening to unravel their newly perfect life, the film’s established themes of love and family don’t come into play so much as hover just out of focus, waiting to be deployed. Alas, they never are.
The film offers a short, snappy prologue that depicts a climactic moment where a docile teenager, DJ (Miles J. Harvey), holds a bloodied older man, Vincent (Ed Harris), at gunpoint. DJ’s gentle voice then takes us back to a few days before the film, revealing them to be step-son and step-father. As the film opens, they get along exceptionally well, albeit during a shooting practice at their vacation home, making one wonder what will lead up to the aforementioned climax, but offering little hints along the way.
Their relationship is frank, and they discuss private romantic matters with alacrity, much to the disapproval of DJ's mother – and Vincent's second wife – Sandy (Gabrielle Union). However, this playful family dynamic is interrupted by the unexpected late-night arrival of Vincent's strange and flamboyant eldest son Rocco (Lewis Pullman), his sweet, pregnant Italian girlfriend Marina (Emanuela Postaccini), and his fainting mother Ruth (Jennifer Coolidge), Vincent's saucy, amoral ex-wife. They claim to be there to celebrate the New Year with family, but Vincent immediately suspects that Rocco is in some kind of trouble.
Elsewhere—as if to confirm this hint, though not quite how or why—a violent older mobster, Lefty (Bill Murray), and his dapper young partner, Lonnie (Pete Davidson), embark on a road trip in search of a target. The person they’re after is supposedly here this winter, but the information comes in slow, infrequent bursts. Meanwhile, the two halves of Vincent’s family life bump into each other, leading to interactions that are initially amusing, because they’re all coming from a place of broad, caricatured insecurity.
Pullman departs from his shy character in “Top Gun: Maverick” and takes on the role of a leather-jacketed “bad boy” with mood swings and daddy issues, making him a joy to watch. Newcomer Harvey is equally interesting, as a young boy with a big heart and big dreams, who is about to leave for college. He also deals with romantic heartbreak in strange, and perhaps overly logistical, ways, given his scientific bent. It seems as though he could use some advice from his big brother — just as Rocco could use someone to mentor him, if only to prepare him for fatherhood — but the residual tensions get the better of Rocco, and he lashes out at DJ for being too enthusiastic.
Unfortunately, that’s the most interesting thing about any of the film’s dynamics. Often, once a character is introduced, their entire personality and identity becomes crystal clear at that moment—a testament to the cast and their ability to make the most of John Pollono’s script—but there’s usually nowhere left for them to go. The cliched joke surrounding Ruth is that she’s a drunk and a nymphomaniac, a “type” of anarchy that Coolidge plays with energy and confidence, but there’s nothing more to it.
Marina Postacchini manages to impart some life and love lessons to DJ, though they never come in handy at any point in the story. Sandy Union seems to exist merely as a “straight” man to some of the other, more chaotic characters, but she has no morals of her own. And while Vincent Harris is chatty enough to be engaging, his character comes across as nothing more than layers. These layers are supposed to be revealed as we learn more about his past (and the two men who are heading toward his family), but while these details help set up potential drama, Montiel never capitalizes on this, only revealing Vincent’s secrets to his family when it’s time to wrap things up. Anything resembling a payoff comes too late.
Despite setting up a fun and potentially explosive dynamic, Riff Raff takes a long, drawn-out approach to its story, with a fair number of twists and turns along the way that rarely lead anywhere. Besides Pullman, Michael Covino is perhaps the film’s most engaging presence, as a fierce, violent figure who ties the film’s various threads together; ironically, he exists only in flashbacks, as a specter of meaning and conflict, as the film struggles to fashion itself into the present, its disparate plots threatening to collide. Unfortunately, it’s not worth the wait, given how quickly the film’s energy plateaus, never recovering.
