Ashley’s husband Jimmy double-crosses his crime boss Donny by stealing a hard drive from him in Miami but Donny (Jackie Earle Hailey) and his thugs manage in the robbery attempt to blast Jimmy’s companion who dies with shots to the gut in the robbery getaway car driven by Ashley. Jimmy correctly suspecting his goose is cooked urges Ashley and their 12-year-old daughter Sarah (Thalia Campbell) to go to Ashley’s (Ashley Greene) father’s shack on the beach in the Caymans. Ashley has not seen father Matt (Nicolas Cage) in a decade. Matt is more or less a beach bum. Unbeknown to Sarah she is carrying the hard drive in her knapsack when she arrives to meet her grandfather.
Bobo (Ron Perlman) and The Grandfather (Donny’s brother) are dispatched to the Caymans. Matt caves in The General’s head with a barbel and Bobo escapes without knowing Sarah is in the escape car. Bobo is a likeable thug looking and sounding none too bright but he reads Shakespeare and is more intelligent than his looks and demeanor suggest. Bobo has the ultimate bargaining chip in his possession….Sarah.
A virtual army is dispatched by Donny to the Caymans searching for the valuable hard drive after the death of The General. But old guy Matt efficiently slaughters most of them. He tells Sarah he is a retired adjudicator retired from working for Uncle Sam. But his killing skills reveal he is more than a retired bureaucrat.
In addition to Donny and his gang there is the brutal Hector (Grace Beyers) who is Donny’s boss. Hector is brutal but elegant. Pure evil but still no match for Matt who must have “retired’ some 30 thugs in all manners possible in the movie. Good triumphs over evil but the “good boss” at “the Agency” perhaps is not so good after all as with the hard drive captured by the Agency he has his eyes on a political career. Message is that goodness is not always pristine!
Nothing very complicated here. Cage certainly has a talent for acting and in the first 30 minutes of the film it is his tone of voice that suggests his recognition of overly lengthy and weak dialogue between himself and Campbell. Perlman in his supporting role is the likeable Bobo and has a fabulous last exit! Jackie Earle Hailey as Donny shines as a frustrated thug. Grace Beyers as Hector exudes vileness.
If you like a simple good guys bad guys action movie without much of a connection to reality you’ll like this one. The “Retirement Plan” has been released theatrically in Canada. It is directed and written by Tim Brown.
RKS 2023 Film Rating 76/100.
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