TIFF24 REVIEW: Riff Raff [2025]

Rating: R | Runtime: 103 minutes
Release Date: February 28th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Roadside Attractions
Director(s): Dito Montiel
Writer(s): John Pollono

Do you need a hug?

There are a few surprise guests for New Year’s as Rocco (Lewis Pullman), his pregnant girlfriend Marina (Emanuela Postacchini), and his mother Ruth (Jennifer Coolidge) show up unannounced at Vincent’s (Ed Harris) door. It’s been eighteen years since he’s seen any of them courtesy of choosing to walk away from his previous life to start anew with Sandy (Gabrielle Union) and her son DJ (Miles J. Harvey). To watch Vincent and the soon-to-be Dartmouth freshman interact, it’s like he’s always been a present and attentive father. To catch one glimpse of Rocco and Ruth is to know that’s definitely not true.

Written by John Pollono and directed by Dito Montiel, Riff Raff doesn’t really have much going for it besides that easy contrast. Sure, there’s the dramatic catalyst that gets them all under the same roof via two heavies with an obvious grudge (Bill Murray’s Lefty and Pete Davidson’s Lonnie), but they serve as more comic relief than narrative thrust. We know they’ll eventually find their way to this Yarmouth vacation home too and that they’ll end up trying to kill someone (if not everyone), but the real question is whether Vincent will be able to protect the son he gave up on like he does the one he adopted.

The journey has its moments courtesy of some very funny performances from Coolidge and Davidson, but the whole is kind of a mess. From the bad dialogue (Rocco saying he knew he loved Marina when she proved she could “pick a lock in five seconds” and said lock is just handcuffs) to sitcom level humor (Ruth is very horny), it’s tough to fully invest in anything that’s happening. It also doesn’t help when most of the necessary exposition comes from shoe-horned flashbacks as though this ham-fisted story structure is a gag … or worse, cool. And don’t get me started on a climax’s bullets proving to be flesh wounds unless five more follow it.

It feels like Pollono wanted a full-blown comical farce and Montiel didn’t get the joke because everything is way too absurd to be delivered so seriously. The whole thing is narrated by DJ as though it’s “The Wonder Years” too—with an aw shucks, I’m-a-teen-smarter-and-less-fun-than-you vibe that really makes you think it’s going somewhere it never does. But boy is that cast great. They almost make-up for the other glaring shortcomings to at least ensure you leave the theater with a smirk while shaking your head at its missed potential.

The lesson: assholes are funny and you can never have too many guns when eye-for-an-eye bullshit is written into your DNA.