The Retirement Plan (#463)


Years ago in my checkered career, my little one-man public relations agency in NYC was hired by the Cayman Islands to help them increase their tourism.  At the time, they were attracting minimal numbers, primarily scuba divers.  The airport terminal was a former hanger with a couple of desks inside for customs and immigration, and there were a grand total of three seedy motels on Seven Mile Beach, and another one elsewhere on the island.  I was successful in making it a very desirable destination.  Which is a long way to explain why I went to see THE RETIREMENT PLAN when I read that it took place in part on the Cayman Islands. Nostalgia, but in all honesty, it has changed so radically since my involvement that I barely recognized anything.  It is a violent, action-packed thriller starring, of all people, Nicholas Cage.  The gist of the story is a family involved with a very bad group of characters, headed by Donny, who only speak in four letter words.  The husband, who is an innocent driver for the bad guys, steals a portable hard drive from them, gives it to his wife and sends her and their daughter to the Cayman Islands to her estranged father who she hasn’t seen in 20 years.  It turns out that grizzled old Cage is a former assassin and trouble shooter for an unnamed government agency.  And he takes on all the bad guys.  It’s improbable and mostly fun and also stars an unrecognizable Ron Perlman, who is a softy bad guy with a conscience.  Lots of twists and turns and dead people.  And it was enjoyable until the end.  Why can’t they make movies with understandable beginnings, middles and ends.  This one has a completely awful ending.  Only 5 critics wrote reviews and 80% gave it a thumbs up to go with 64% of audiences.

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