One Day As A Lion
Directed by John Swab
Written by Scott Caan
Starring Scott Caan, Marianne Rendón, J.K. Simmons, Frank Grillo and Virginia Madsen
Runtime: 87 minutes
In select Theaters April 4, Digital on April 7

by Alex Rudolph, Staff Writer

One Day As A Lion, the new film from director John Swab and writer/star Scott Caan, is one of the better recent films to take from Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers' 90s breakthroughs and probably the best ever film to be named after a Benito Mussolini line (Goodreads tags the full quote as "fascist" and "inspirational").

It's one of those movies we used to get a lot of, where a few different characters circle around similar conflicts until they inevitably smash into each other. Serious topics are approached from a light-hearted perspective until they aren't, and the bodies start piling up. Caan, writing his first film since his Hawaii Five-O stint began in 2010, stars as Jackie Powers, a self-described loser criminal who doesn't want his son following in his footsteps. The kid is in jail and awaiting trial for a crime we never fully learn about and Jackie is determined to make enough money to hire him a lawyer. It's a twist on the 'one last job' trope-- Jackie's already stuck in this muck, but he can, hopefully, make sure his child doesn't end up committing further crimes.

Along the way, we meet his boss (Frank Grillo), the criminal Jackie gets sent to kill (J.K. Simmons), a corny lawyer (Billy Blair), an innocent bystander who witnesses one of Jackie's crimes (Marianne Rendón), Jackie's ex-wife (Taryn Manning), etc. Rendón's character, Lola, is the only one who sticks around for more than a handful of scenes and gets fully sketched out as a character. She's a waitress in the diner where Jackie tries to ambush J.K. Simmons' character and she ends up a hostage when Jackie screws up every aspect of what would have been a quick and easy job if we were watching a more straightforward movie.

More than the Tarantino and Coen brothers films One Day As A Lion's promotional materials reference, it connects to Buffalo '66 (a movie whose writer/director/star was in his own share of Tarantino rip-offs). Like that movie, this one is about a criminal who kidnaps a woman he bickers with but eventually falls for as he searches for some kind of redemption. One Day As A Lion also has more heart than a Coen brothers movie. They're my favorite filmmakers, but they tend to handle their characters from an emotional remove, and any empathy I have for Barton Fink or the morally shifty ensemble in Miller's Crossing seems to be a defect on my part. Caan's writing and the casts performances are earnest and truly touching, especially as the story progresses.

For all of the characters running around this movie, it's mostly a film about Jackie and Lola, two people who aren't where they want to be. The world is harsh to the unlucky, but maybe if the two of them pool their energy, they can accomplish something small but relatively vital. The other actors do well-- Virginia Madsen, playing Lola's moaning, belittling, emotionally abusive mother is excellent (like Buffalo '66, Lola pretends to be in love with Jackie to convince her crappy parent she isn't a total bum and like Christopher Walken in any number of Tarantino copycats, Madsen shows up for maybe five minutes but steals the show). But the film belongs to these two. Their relationship, verging on romantic while staying more complicated than a romcom couple would be allowed, is the film's heart and its strongest element.

As the movie progresses, we learn that Jackie's jumping through all of the hoops and following all of the dubious orders he gets for $20,000. It's a number that would be tiny in another crime film. Characters don't rob banks for less than a million bucks. Caan's character in the Ocean's 11 trilogy would blow up if he put in this much work for $20,000. But that sense of desperation helps make everything a little sweatier. Everybody's just trying to stay alive and get the minimum amount of money needed to make it through an obstacle. Most films wouldn't shoot that low, but most films wouldn't have bothered to put the work in to make you care, either.