Rating: R | Runtime: 87 minutes
Release Date: April 4th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Grindstone Entertainment Group
Director(s): John Swab
Writer(s): Scott Caan

You might be the worst criminal in the history of the sport.

We’re four months into 2023 and I’ve already seen two new John Swab films (with a third, Candy Land, I’ve yet to catch). That’s a prolific year for the indie director and, in my opinion, a successful one too considering my mixed enjoyment for Little Dixie and now my enthusiastic enjoyment for One Day as a Lion. The latter may have similar issues where genre and budget are concerned narratively speaking, but the fun factor cannot be undervalued.

Scott Caan has written an entertaining bunch of characters ranging from egomaniacal cowboys to New York criminals losing their edge to a life-long screw-up willing to perform the dumbest act of his life in order to protect his teenage son. It leads to a lot of comical verbal pissing contests and, perhaps surprisingly, a lot of heart.

Jackie (Caan) is introduced crying in his car because of what he’s agreed to do. Broke and desperate to hire a lawyer so Billy (Dash Melrose) doesn’t get lost to the juvenile detention system that he did growing up, his old friend Dom (George Carroll) proves the only lifeline at his disposal. If Jackie kills Walter Boggs (J.K. Simmons), a man who owes one hundred large to Dom’s crime boss Pauly (Frank Grillo), they’ll pay for the attorney.

The problem, of course, is that Jackie isn’t a bad guy. He got out early enough thanks to a middling boxing career and never had to risk doing hard time. So, he decides to open his mouth instead of pulling the trigger. He lets Walter know who sent him, accidentally shoots a bystander in the head, and takes the only witness (Marianne Rendón’s Lola) hostage.

The ensuing mess separates into two threads: Jackie trying to stay alive while Dom pursues him as Lola looks to help (with the prospect of her rich mother’s money, as played by Virginia Madsen) and Pauly trying to salvage his reputation either by getting the money Walter owes or killing him himself.

The first is where the film shines as we get to know Jackie and Lola as flawed yet empathetic souls believing they can scratch each other’s backs and save Billy in the process. The second drags a bit since Walter was always a means to an end where making Jackie’s life forfeit is concerned. We don’t actually care about his or Pauly’s fate. If not for the laughs earned whenever Grillo and Carroll are sitting at a table together, I’d argue the value of this subplot isn’t worth the time away from the leads.

In the end, they’re as disposable to the whole as the mothers who are conversely given one or two scenes to shine before disappearing (Madsen and Taryn Manning as Billy’s mom). That’s not to say Simmons and Grillo as polar opposites when it comes to country rancher and big city shot caller isn’t effective. It’s simply unnecessary past the opening few scenes.

The real intrigue lies in Jackie’s race against time to help his son and Dom’s conflicting motivations where it comes to needing to kill his friend out of duty and not wanting to out of loyalty. Lola is a bit of a third wheel in that sense, but not when it comes to investing in the journey since we’re learning about Jackie’s own genuine motives as she does—Bob’s (Bruce Davis) untimely and easily forgotten demise notwithstanding. Watching those two willingly give the other a belief they’ve never received before is everything.

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(L-R) J.K. Simmons as Walter Boggs and Frank Grillo as Pauly Russo in the action/thriller, ONE DAY AS A LION, a Lionsgate release. Photo courtesy of Lionsgate.