Bill Murray as a sourpuss isn’t a stretch. He has played unlikeable to absolute likability on many occasions, especially as the grand master curmudgeon Scrooge in Scrooged and as the primadonna news anchor in Groundhog Day. Using him in older age as the prosaic “Grumpy Old Man” seems a natural progression. So here he is in writer-director Theodore Melfi’s newest film St. Vincent and it would be easy to write the film off for its somewhat uninspired lead casting and its familiar storyline. But strangely what makes St. Vincent work isn’t the believability of Bill Murray in the role based on past work, or that he brings any of his usual sensitivity to the role, it’s that for once, he doesn’t. He keeps up his coarseness throughout the entire film, and strangely, it works.

In the film, Murray is Vincent, a Brooklyn native living alone, spending his days gambling, drinking, dodging those he owes money, and shacking up with Daka (Naomi Watts), the pregnant Russian prostitute who counts as his only friend. Disturbing his usual routine is Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), the new kid next door, whose single mother Maggie (Melissa McCarthy) is at her wits end trying to provide for her and her son while dealing with her ex’s custody battle. After bullies at school steal his house keys, Oliver spends an afternoon with Vincent and an unlikely babysitting situation emerges. Vincent needs money, Maggie needs childcare, it all works out. Except of course that Vincent isn’t exactly babysitter material. His idea of supervising Oliver includes trips to the race track, threatening Oliver’s bullies, visiting his alzheimer-stricken wife in her convalescent home, and hanging out in his favorite bar.

At first glance the film’s eventual plot conclusion seems a given. In these situations an emotional transformation seems inevitable. And while the incredibly clever Oliver does end up seeing the good in Vincent, deciding to feature him in a school project around finding everyday saints, the film focuses more on forgiveness and modern patchwork family formation than personal growth. Lieberher and Murray’s chemistry sells it. It would be easy to focus on Murray’s performance as the impetus for the film working, but Lieberher plays Oliver as more than just a sorry sort of kid, infusing him with real empathy and cleverness.

McCarthy’s usual rambling gimmick is put to best use here, for once giving her a chance to do so with the emotional realism of a frazzled mother. Chris O’Dowd is maybe a bit obvious in his part as a progressive Catholic school teacher, but as always he picks up the humor and adds his own indelible touch to it. In fact so many enjoyable characters really throw into light the one that just doesn’t work, which is Naomi Watts’ Daka. Whether or not making her Russian was deliberate in order to make her dimwittedness seem more excusable, or worse, a cheap joke poking fun at Russian accents, Daka stands out like a sore thumb as unoriginal and unfunny. I’d prefer not to blame Watts, and instead blame Melfi, but she owns the role and plays it up. It’s certainly part of why St. Vincent isn’t spotless.

Because the script is based on many of his own personal experiences and people he’s known, it seems harsh to pinpoint Melfi’s plot holes (for one, he successfully uses a health setback to throw off the story, but then makes too light of the reality of recovering from such an ordeal), but they do exist. Terrence Howard has a small but substantial role as a loan shark lackey trying to collect from Vincent, but there’s no clear resolution on his story thread. Vincent’s inevitable super-grump moment seems a little out of step in the film’s storyline. Some sharper editing might have helped there.

All in all, St. Vincent is everything you do expect, and a few things you don’t. Murray does this particular role quite well (why else would he have done two Garfield movies if a grumpy cat wasn’t relatable to him?) and he pushes the film beyond the obvious. The emotional climax isn’t as hard-hitting as it could be, but audiences will enjoy St. Vincent for its humor and performances, not for any depth Melfi may have been hopeful to convey. And to be honest, who needs another sappy tale of late-life redemption? I’d rather watch Murray be crotchety from beginning to end.

Denis Villeneuve, the French-Canadian director of Polytechnique and Incendies, has seemingly hit the jackpot with his English language debut. Teaming up with a cast of terrific actors along with legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins, Prisoners sadly spends most of its time letting the incredibly talented people behind it build a hollow shell of a film. The mentions of spirituality, faith, and morally grey situations are laid out but never explored beyond the surface. Thankfully, with people like Villeneuve and Deakins at the helm, the technical mastery makes up for plenty lost in the lackluster screenwriting.

The film starts on Thanksgiving with two neighbouring families, the Dovers and the Birches, visiting each other for dinner. It’s only until well after the dinner that both families realize their youngest daughters, Anna and Joy, are nowhere to be found. Their concern eventually turns to panic as they realize someone took their children. Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) leads the investigation into finding the missing girls, while the two sets of parents grieve in their own ways. Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) is furious at the police for being ineffective, while his wife Grace (Maria Bello) constantly takes pills to stop herself from going into hysterics. Franklin and Nancy Birch (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis) simply co-operate and hope for the best.

The only suspect in the case at this point, the driver of an old RV the kids played around with before disappearing (played terrifically by Paul Dano), is mentally impaired to the point where it would be impossible for him to have successfully kidnapped two children. The police let him go, but Keller is convinced of the man’s guilt and kidnaps him. At this point the narrative cuts back and forth between Keller’s torturing of Dano for information and Loki’s attempts to solve the case through more traditional means.

The moral issues that come with Dover’s actions are touched upon only when Franklin and Nancy get roped into helping him. Keller never shows any sense of guilt for what he’s doing, but Howard and Davis do excellent work showing how their characters feel like there are no other options but helping Dover out. Most of the cast ends up doing the leg work for their characters, as writer Aaron Guzikowski mostly boils them down to one or two traits (Keller’s a doomsday prepper, Loki is the classic determined detective, Franklin plays the trumpet). Davis and Bello get the worst material to work with, as Nancy amounts to nothing more than a blank slate and Bello is reduced to frequently wailing. With characters defined so broadly it’s hard for the film’s themes to resonate.

Luckily there is a much better film within Prisoners, and it comes out when the focus turns back to a standard thriller instead of shallow introspection. Villeneuve creates plenty of tension, especially in the film’s dark final act, and Deakins is on top form as always. There are plenty of things going on stylistically, like the way Villeneuve plays with the violation of space throughout the film, however, it’s one of the only interesting things going on for the first two-thirds. Prisoners can be quite good when it chooses to be a regular thriller. Unfortunately it decides to try for more, and comes up short in doing so.

Prisoners trailer: