Danny Collins * * *

I think you’re going to have to be quick to catch this one.  It’s been out for a couple of days and when I saw it there were two people (including me) in the cinema.  Which is a shame, because it’s a pretty good film that deserves better than two people on a Saturday afternoon.  It’s an all star cast with some fine performances: so fine they even overcome a few very clumsy scenes. (I said it was pretty good, not perfect.)
Al Pacino stars; it’s always a treat to see him work.  He plays Danny Collins a semi-fictional singer/songwriter from the early seventies who is still hanging around today (you know the type): touring, singing the same old songs, entertaining an audience mostly of his own age, doing cocaine, drinking to excess, sleeping with girls a third of his age, living in great comfort, and feeling empty despite it all.
When he was starting out he did an interview with a magazine.  John Lennon read the interview and wrote to Danny Collins about not letting fame and fortune blind you from your true values.  But it's a letter that Danny Collins never received.  The stolen letter finally gets to Danny 40 odd years later.  It hits Danny hard and he sets out to change his life, starting by giving up cocaine and booze and looking for the son he was never there for.  
He also reappraises what he has become and what he is singing.  The songs he wrote himself were pushed aside early in his career to make way for sing-alongs that are as irritating as they are catchy.  But the fans love them.
Danny checks out of his beautiful home and into a hotel in New Jersey.  He has a piano delivered to his room and starts composing again.  
Then he goes hunting for his son Tom (Bobby Cannavale) who he knows to be a New Jersey resident.  Tom is a working class guy with a solid marriage and a little girl with ADD.  And Tom is not much interested in giving balm to the conscience of the old man after 40 years.  But Danny keeps at it, by offering the kind of help they can’t refuse for the little girl, and later for Tom himself when he reveals to Danny a problem of his own.
To overcome the awful songs he sings, the selfish and spoilt life he has led, they have to do a lot to make Danny likable, but Al Pacino can do that.  He is so determinedly charming you just root for the guy.  Even the no-nonsense hotel manager (Annette Bening) warms to him to a point bordering on romance.   As his manager (Chris Plummer) explains “Danny’s got a great heart he just tends to keep it up his arse”.
The down side of Danny Collins is that it treats it’s sentimental scenes with mawkishness and contrivance.   The script can be like Danny himself - audiences are there to be played.  It can become irritatingly condescending in some scenes, but the cast  work hard to make it work - Jennifer Garner as Tom's wife is especially good -  and in the end the film has strength enough for you to  forgive its shortcomings and  leave you fairly satisfied.