Film Review: 80 FOR BRADY (2023): A Light As Air Comedy with Fun Turns from Four Great Actresses in Search of a Script

80 for Brady Review

80 for Brady (2023) Film Review, a movie directed by Kyle Marvin, written by Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins and starring Lily Tomlin, Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, Harry Hamlin, Sally Kirkland, Sara Gilbert, Bob Balaban, Glynn Turman, Tom Brady, Jimmy O. Yang, Ron Funches, Rebecca Field, Pason, Zina Wilde, Rob Gronkowski and Ray Buffer.

A movie doesn’t have to have a great script to work well but the new star-studded comedy, 80 for Brady, is so bare bones in terms of its plot that it is essentially just a glorified trip to see a football game. Things happen, mistakes happen, and lives change a little bit but, for the most part, this could have been something that went to a streaming service instead of coming straight to theaters. With that being said, director Kyle Marvin has managed to assemble some great talent to play the ladies who head the cast of 80 for Brady. Sally Field and Lily Tomlin are delightful and Rita Moreno is spot on the money in her engaging performance. Jane Fonda is just OK but seeing her in action again doing anything will put a smile on the viewer’s face, for sure.

80 for Brady is based (I’m sure very loosely) on a true story from 2017 where a group of four aging women attended the Super Bowl to see their hero Tom Brady’s team (hopefully) win. As the film’s premise kicks into gear, the ladies try to win tickets to the Super Bowl in a radio telephone contest where the best story will win the tickets. Sally Field is Betty, a mathematics professor, Lily Tomlin is Lou, a cancer survivor, Jane Fonda is Trish, an author (who sometimes feels like Blanche from “The Golden Girls,” only more high maintenance) and Rita Moreno plays Maura who is dabbling in a retirement home and sees the chance to go to the Super Bowl as an event that could change her life and those lives of her best friends forever.

What happens in 80 for Brady as our aging female stars travel to Houston and eventually arrive for the football game? Some things do but nothing that couldn’t have been done in a Netflix movie with a generous budget. Somehow, after an eating contest which Betty participates in (hot, spicy wings are the food at hand), the tickets that the ladies have obtained for the game get misplaced. On  a mission to find out how to get those tickets back, Maura loses her way at a party and ends up donning a mask that is straight out of Eyes Wide Shut, a movie which the film cleverly references. Don’t think there will be some steamy scenes here, though, because the mask is actually a red herring and instead of stumbling onto a sex party, Maura gets involved in a card game where she ends up making some high bets. Maybe she could buy a new set of tickets?

There is a funny scene with Lou negotiating with a ticket scalper to purchase new tickets to no avail. You see, Lou has a lot of her happiness riding on attending this game and the other ladies do as well. Lou will do anything to get her and her besties into the event and there’s even a secret as to how the original tickets were obtained. It’s all cute but light as air and it sometimes feels like the script could have been rewritten as something with more drama or substance involved. It’s a comedy, primarily, but what if there were more serious problems each lady had to deal with than the ones the film presents? Betty has an interesting, offbeat husband (Bob Balaban) and Lou has a daughter (Sara Gilbert) but those two characters don’t have any real dramatic stakes invested in them. What if there was more to lose that all came together by attending the Super Bowl? Then, 80 for Brady would have been better.

Betty gets to talk to a good-looking stud (Matt Laurier) in one cute scene as Betty gets to relate to the handsome young man but it’s just a sequence that doesn’t really go anywhere or do anything to make the plot special. Of course, there are some nice dancing scenes, including one of Lou and Betty getting down and boogying in a very inspired fashion. The ladies must also, at one point, prove themselves worthy as dancers to get into the stadium when they realize they don’t have their tickets. It’s fluff that is cute but not what one comes to expect from a star studded production of this magnitude. Assembling this cast was a dream come true, but the movie is only moderately entertaining and some of the scenes drag. Non-football fans could be bored too as the film reaches the actual Super Bowl scenes.

Of course, it’s no surprise that Tomlin shares a scene with everyone’s favorite Patriot, Tom Brady, which is just adorable. It’s cuter than cute and sweet beyond belief as the two exchange kind thoughts but, again, if there was more urgency to the story line, there would have been so much more to gain from watching the comic stars go through their paces.

80 for Brady is a movie that could have truly been special. It’s got a big heart but needed more of a story line to engage the everyday viewer. Still, I wouldn’t have missed it. They’ve even put together a music video for the film with Dolly Parton, Belinda Carlisle, Cyndi Lauper and Gloria Estefan singing a heartwarming song that plays at the end of the picture. It’s hard to tell someone not to go see 80 for Brady because the four lead stars are legendary. But, if one can wait for streaming to see it, then one may feel this film plays a lot better at home than it does in a theater.

Rating: 6.5/10

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