Captain Ron

Directed by Thom Eberhardt, Captain Ron follows Martin Short’s Martin Harvey as he and his family (Mary Kay Place’s Katherine, Meadow Sisto’s Caroline, and Benjamin Salisbury’s Benjamin) embark on a trip from the Caribbean to Miami aboard their inherited yacht – with Martin’s decision to hire Kurt Russell’s erratic title character paving the way for a series of increasingly dangerous misadventures. Filmmaker Eberhardt, working from John Dwyer’s screenplay, delivers a watchable yet entirely forgettable comedy that doesn’t contain much in the way of propulsive forward momentum, as the movie, which runs an appreciatively brisk 100 minutes, eventually progresses into an episodic midsection that’s just about as hit-and-miss as one could imagine – with certain digressions ultimately faring much, much better than others. There’s little doubt, then, that Captain Ron benefits quite substantially from Russell’s perpetually captivating and engaging turn as the personable Ron Rico, with the actor’s often absurdly charming efforts essentially smoothing over the various narrative bumps and carrying the proceedings through to its incongruously action-packed climax. (Short, on the other hand, generally struggles to convincingly step into the shoes of his straight-man protagonist.) The final result is a decidedly uneven endeavor that would hardly be worth mentioning were it not for Russell’s completely captivating performance, although, to be fair, the affable nature of virtually every aspect of the picture does prove fairly difficult to resist (ie the whole thing is just pleasant, for the most part).

**1/2 out of ****

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