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20-10-2025 Vol 19

TIFF Review: Easy’s Waltz Finds Nic Pizzolatto Offering an Odd, Creaky New Hollywood Counterfeit

My friend (and Film Stage Managing Editor) Nick Newman likes the term “counterfeit money” to describe certain movies. Be it The Batman or Ben Affleck’s oeuvre, it’s an apt descriptor for a number of titles play-acting as real-deal adult filmmaking while taking shortcuts around the stylistic verve or moral quandaries that defined the real thing of, say, the 1970s. Easy’s Waltz, the directorial debut of True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto, certainly earns this label. Taking the guise of a downbeat New Hollywood character drama you’d get from Bob Rafelson or John Cassavetes to unintentionally hilarious ends, the film at least bears enough eccentricities to be a more pleasurable sit than most bigger-budgeted studio slop.

The titular Easy (Vince Vaughn) is a Vegas lounge singer who, in his 50s, seems to be on his last legs. Not helping matters is his quasi-con artist little brother, Sam (Simon Rex) whom the crooner still has to look after well into adulthood. The kitsch starts here. Would it not have made more sense to cast Vaughn as, say, a Don Rickles-esque Vegas comedian instead? Frankly, all of the actor’s big musical numbers––of which there are a number, most dramatically Ultravox’s “Vienna”––bring more the feeling of someone giving it their all at karaoke than a seasoned singer. Easy’s “talent” nevertheless catches the eye of Mickey (Al Pacino), a seemingly mob-connected former entertainer who can give the break he and his band, The Grifters, so desperately need. Meanwhile, Sam running around with Mickey’s much younger girlfriend (Kate Mara) is bound to get everyone in trouble. 

It’s ultimately telling about Easy’s Waltz that it chooses “Vienna,” a motif of Bret Easton Ellis’ recent novel The Shards, for its soundtrack. Pizzolatto seems to have the same Gen X old-man bitterness as his buddy Ellis, and that hangs over the film to both genuinely felt and dull ends. It’s basically impossible not to zone out when a Joe Biden-esque Al Pacino delivers a number of faux-profound soliloquies about aging, but the sense of being ushered out in middle age (Pizzolatto is the kind of guy who encouraged online review-bombing of the last True Detective season, after all) at least animates the film a little. 

That said, it’s still odd as a Gen X text when the film’s narrative and formal creakiness suggest something directed by an 87-year-old. One wonders what Pizzolatto was thinking when he had the briefly introduced, not-fulfilled plotline of Easy going viral (over two million views on YouTube, as pointed out) for a cover of Mike and the Mechanics’ “Silent Running.” In what world would a mediocre lounge singer’s cover of a not-so-great song capture the attention of the extremely online? Also, what stylistically is Pizzolatto attempting when he intercuts Simon Rex printing out QR codes and Vaughn in black-and-white covering “Little Drummer Boy”? These are the mysteries of Easy’s Waltz––solving which may not be rewarding, but are at least tickling.

Easy’s Waltz premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.

The post TIFF Review: Easy’s Waltz Finds Nic Pizzolatto Offering an Odd, Creaky New Hollywood Counterfeit first appeared on The Film Stage.

Filip

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