Easy's Waltz

Movies can overcome bad directing (The Devil Wears Prada, Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables). Movies can overcome bad editing (The New World, The Hateful Eight, Interstellar). But can a movie ever overcome a badly miscast leading actor? With Easy’s Waltz the answer is no. The film, a feature debut from Nic Pizzolatto, is a character study built entirely around one crooner, a man who throughout his life never broke through despite supposedly having “the best voice of LA.” To play that role, instead of casting a washed up singer or at least someone who can carry a tune on stage, Pizzolatto turned to his old True Detective collaborator Vince Vaughn. Grave mistake. Vaughn’s vocals place him next to Pierce Brosnan, Clint Eastwood, and Gerard Butler in the hall of cinema’s worst singers. Worse still, his screen persona has always been abrasive, fast talking, slightly arrogant, and above the situation. Asking him to embody a vulnerable, broken, smooth voiced crooner requires a suspension of disbelief that is simply not humanly possible.

The plot itself is straightforward. Easy, played by Vaughn, is ready to give up on his singing career until Vegas old guard Mickey Albano (Al Pacino) hears him during what should be his final performance and, fascinated by his voice (is he deaf?), offers to support his comeback. The problem is that Easy is impulsive, violent, and short tempered, and his brother, played by Simon Rex, is an opportunist who involves himself in shady deals.

At its core, the film belongs to the comeback lineage of The Wrestler, The Last Showgirl and Crazy Heart, with touches of A Star Is Born in its toxic entanglements and singer discovery, and shades of The Fighter or Raging Bull in its sibling conflict. Yet without the appropriate leading performance at the center, it all collapses. Imagine if The Wrestler had cast a very skinny man as its protagonist, or if The Last Showgirl made Pamela’s character thirty years younger. That is the kind of contradiction Easy’s Waltz offers.

But the casting is not the film’s only misstep. The direction overall is very weak. Subdued and bland, it never immerses us in the loneliness, desperation, or texture of Las Vegas. The musical sequences in particular are awkwardly staged, exposing Vaughn’s discomfort on stage. The songs often have verses looped to match exposition beats playing out in parallel (do not try to sing along in your head, it will only confuse you). And when the story edges toward intensity, such as guards arriving to enforce Albano’s orders, the staging is so clumsy it borders on unintentional comedy (bad makeup work after a character “suffers the consequence” is equally hilarious). Reports of studio mandates demanding the tone be “lightened up” help explain this, but it does not change the result.

The one saving grace is Pacino as Albano. Where Vaughn strains for sincerity and never convinces, Pacino takes the opposite approach, giving the impression of not even trying, and it works to his advantage. He sells his mob connected character and commands the screen with ease, rarely raising his voice yet still carrying menace and gravitas. Even when the script and direction reduce him to little more than a glorified bully, Pacino still makes the character feel dangerous and unpredictable, which is no small feat.

Beyond that, Easy’s Waltz is a collection of misses: karaoke level song choices, ear grating performances, an unconvincing Vaughn at the center, a tired subplot with the brother, and lackluster direction. Not the smoothest move into feature filmmaking for Pizzolatto.

This is part of Reviews On Reels TIFF 2025 Coverage. Due to the hectic rhythm of a film festival, it may be tweaked in the future. Still courtesy of TIFF.

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