Bill Murray can mug with the best of them and in this film he is pretty much the whole thing. Playing a Vietnam vet, Vincent, who has seen better times, he parlays his drunkenness into opportunity. The film begins with him totally wasted, backing his car, an old woody convertible, over his picket fence. The next day, a couple of Hispanic movers bringing a middle aged woman (Melissa McCarthy) and her son to their new digs, damages a tree branch. Murray uses this to threaten her with a law suit unless she pays up. It's obvious that she doesn't have much money. It turns out that she and her son are escaping her husband, a philanderer, and the two are on the road to divorces. What ensues is a relationship that grows out of necessity as Murray is enlisted to look after the boy, Oliver, at significant cost to the mother. The kid now becomes a part of Murray's daily forays into irresponsibility: bars, horse track, joy riding, etc. He also brings the child to a hospital where his Alzheimers stricken wife lives. Murray is devoted to her, even though he has an ongoing thing with a Russian hooker, Naomi Watts, whom he may have impregnated. She has the heart of gold in a combative personality. The boy, Jaeden Liebehrer, is a gem of an actor. He has this fatalistic sense to him. He knows he will remain the perpetual victim, but when Vincent comes into his life, he begins to absorb tools to try to get by. Mom works sixteen hour shifts and has no idea of what goes on after Murray picks the boy up from school. What is heartening is that nothing is simple here. Murray continues his bad ways almost throughout, but we know he has a marshmallow center. With all the darkness in the world, give this one a shot.
Review of St. Vincent
