3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Retirement Plan

2023, Tim Brown (Treasure Hounds) - Netflix

This utterly terrible movie is a product of a Darius Films signed deal to make movies in the Cayman Islands. It is an action comedy about a retired hitman / assassin / govt stooge hiding out, drunkenly, in the Caymans until his estranged daughter comes to him, wrapped up in a problem with Miami mobsters. The entire movie comes off like a Hallmarkie purple suit made a crime thriller. But in a beautiful locale. I fully suspect it will be rolled into the recurring dream I have where I am a caretaker of an estate who lives in a shack on the beach. Maybe that's a good cover for a retired hitman?

Anywayz, Ashley (Ashley Greene Khoury, Twilight) and her husband run afoul of Miami gangster Donnie, and Ashley sends her daughter head to the Caymans to hide out with her estranged father Matt (who also has another name to add comedy, and make his character seem well-rounded; he is not) but she is caught before she can follow. Donnie sends a pair of goons, who Matt kills one of, while the other runs off with the granddaughter. So Donnie sends more guys, who also die, so Donnie and the rest of his goons fly to the Caymans. Meanwhile... oh never mind, suffice to say that the movie attempts to add in a double-cross and triple-cross sub-plot that just falls entirely flat. Eventually all goons die and family is reunited.

This movie is so bad. In other hands, non-Hallmarkie-directing-style hands, it could be a serviceable cookie-cutter thriller, but the movie does nothing with nothing. Sure, it has Nick Cage and a handful of other "that guy(s)" character actors who at least try not to phone it in. Nick Cage is even dialled back a 100-fold so you don't often get to see him just being his bug-eyed, rambling self.  There is nothing worth watching in this movie other than looking at the drone & copter shots of the Cayman Islands.