80 for Brady

Based on a true story, 80 for Brady follows four lifelong friends (Lily Tomlin’s Lou, Jane Fonda’s Trish, Rita Moreno’s Maura, and Sally Field’s Betty) as they travel to Texas to watch Tom Brady and the New England Patriots play at the Super Bowl. It’s a crowd-pleasing premise that’s employed to thoroughly middle-of-the-road yet generally entertaining effect by Kyle Marvin, as the filmmaker, armed with Sarah Haskins and Emily Halpern’s screenplay, delivers a briskly-paced comedy that benefits from the predictably charming efforts of its uniformly likeable stars – with the performers’ agreeable work certainly matched by a roster of such eclectic periphery players as Alex Moffat, Rob Corddry, Harry Hamlin, and Guy Fieri (!). And although the narrative rarely, if ever, takes any interesting, unexpected detours, 80 for Brady‘s pervasively affable atmosphere ensures that it does remain, for the most part, watchable through its 98 minute runtime – although, by that same token, it’s equally clear that the movie essentially (and effectively) evaporates from one’s mind minutes after it’s concluded. The end result is a fairly (and unapologetically) mindless comedy that accomplishes precisely what it sets out to do, no more and no less, which ensures that 80 for Brady ultimately comes off as a passable endeavor that’ll surely thrill its target audience of older viewers.

**1/2 out of ****