In mid May 2016, it was announced that Broad Green Pictures and Entertainment One would co-produce Shelton's first feature film since Hollywood Homicide (2003), under the original title Villa Capri, with Morgan Freeman and Tommy Lee Jones attached to star. In early June, it was announced that Rene Russo was cast. By mid August, Glenne Headly, Joe Pantoliano, and Jane Seymour rounded out the film's cast. At the same time, principal photography commenced, and took place in Palm Springs and Santa Clarita, California. In September 2017, the film was retitled Just Getting Started.
The film stars Freeman, Jones, Russo, Headly, Pantoliano, and Seymour. Despite a talented cast, this movie doesn't work. The casting is such a mystery that you could be forgiven for thinking the whole process was done by small ads in an LA trade paper. In this lacklustre affair, even Jones manages to put in his most wooden performance on record. It's truly sad to see Freeman reduced to this. Freeman and Russo, are given enough character quirks to made this trip in cliché-ville more enjoyable than most. I guess you can't blame Jones for being bored during most of this, but it's too bad the fact is so painfully apparent throughout the movie. The surplus of character humor seems all the more desperate in view of the essentially humorless stars.
How could so many talented people make such a tepid, superfluous movie? It's easy: that's what happens when you listen to your inner marketer instead of your muse. This is going to go down as one of the lesser films in the portfolios of Shelton, Freeman, and most everyone else involved. My guess is Shelton borrowed an idea from Whose Line Is It Anyway? The trouble is that Mr. Shelton don't do enough with the material to make it dramatically compelling. An irritating, disjointed mess that can never decide what kind of film it wants to be. It's not a bad film, just a very tired one that wastes a good cast. Some people will like this movie. For the rest, the best time to see it is when it hits Blockbuster. In its attempt to stuff as much on screen as possible, the movie ends up being unsatisfying in every way. The film isn't insulting, but it equates respectable entertainment with restrained pleasure. That Freeman deserves better goes without saying. The trouble is that Freeman deserves better. So does Shelton. So do Russo, Jones, Pantoliano, Seymour, and so do we.
How could so many talented people make such a tepid, superfluous movie? It's easy: that's what happens when you listen to your inner marketer instead of your muse. This is going to go down as one of the lesser films in the portfolios of Shelton, Freeman, and most everyone else involved. My guess is Shelton borrowed an idea from Whose Line Is It Anyway? The trouble is that Mr. Shelton don't do enough with the material to make it dramatically compelling. An irritating, disjointed mess that can never decide what kind of film it wants to be. It's not a bad film, just a very tired one that wastes a good cast. Some people will like this movie. For the rest, the best time to see it is when it hits Blockbuster. In its attempt to stuff as much on screen as possible, the movie ends up being unsatisfying in every way. The film isn't insulting, but it equates respectable entertainment with restrained pleasure. That Freeman deserves better goes without saying. The trouble is that Freeman deserves better. So does Shelton. So do Russo, Jones, Pantoliano, Seymour, and so do we.
Simon says Just Getting Started receives:
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