There was a time when a movie featuring the likes of Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, and Tommy Lee Jones would have been a surefire candidate for an Oscar or a box office hit. However, reflecting on the current state of the film industry, The Comeback Trail (now available for streaming on Paramount+) emerges as a light-hearted comedy that remained shelved, unreleased, for half a decade. Such is the nature of the industry? The film’s origins involve an intriguing narrative – director George Gallo, renowned for scripting Midnight Run, took on the task of remaking Harry Hurwitz’s 1982 comedy of the same name. Buster Crabbe, known for his roles in Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon serials, starred as a washed-up Western actor unwittingly used by dodgy producers hoping for a fatal accident on set to cash in on the insurance. The original took eight years to hit the screens and faded from memory, and the remake, despite eliciting some genuine laughs, appears fated to a comparable obscurity after its own five-year distribution limbo.

The Gist: HOLLYWOOD, 1974: Outside a cinema, clergy members brandish signs and chant against the film Killer Nuns. This spells trouble for producers Max Barber (De Niro) and his nephew Walter Creason (Zach Braff), who are unable to draw audiences, with Max finding himself significantly indebted to Reggie Fontaine (Freeman), a gangster who finances their films and has a history of violence for lesser offenses. If not for Max’s crafty maneuvering and dubious charm, his lifespan would likely be shorter. Using his quick wit—a paradoxical skill exclusive to people like Max—he manages to delay his impending demise same as his home, rumbles infrequently due to its proximity to an airport, an occurrence that hardly disturbs his underhanded musings.

Max could settle his debts by parting with his cherished film script, Paradise, to James Moore (Emile Hirsch), a former colleague turned successful rival. How successful? Moore resides far from airport nuisances, ready to offer Max a million dollars and enlist top-tier actor Frank Pierce (Patrick Muldoon) for the lead role. Yet, Max, a stalwart of producing low-quality grindhouse flicks, refuses to compromise this once, claiming Paradise as his magnum opus, a guaranteed Oscar contender—though given Max’s career stage, this aspiration may not be grounded in reality. Not that he’d accept such insight, as his disdain is palpable towards Frank Pierce. How much disdain? Max is jubilant when Frank, slightly pompous and proud of performing his stunts, takes a fatal fall off a building, ending on a city bus. Walter, possessing a stronger moral compass, is appalled by these events but remains too loyal to ditch his uncle, abandon his cliché shady producer mustache, and seek an honorable career.

Walter might do that if he knew what Max was up to next. See, James scored $5 million in an insurance payout after Frank died, which inspires Max to dust off an old Western script, throw together a janky cast and crew and roll film. What he doesn’t tell Walter is that he intends to cast a schmuck in the lead and engineer an “accidental” death all the way to the bank. Max and Walter drop in at a “retired actors home” and stumble across Duke Montana (Jones), a drunken old codger so far away from his screen-cowboy fame, every day he puts a bullet in his revolver, spins it, and sticks the barrel in his mouth. YIKES. He’s PERFECT. Max whatevers his way through the production – insert wacky episodes with a goofball animal wrangler (Chris Mullinax) and blonde not-as-much-of-a-bimbo-as-she-looks director (Kate Katzman) here – until Duke goes in front of the camera, where he’s absolutely certain to fall off a rigged rope bridge or be burned to death leaping his horse through flames, right? If only!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Comeback Trail rides the aging-star-teamup energy of movies like Stand Up Guys and Space Cowboys (or, to cross the gender divide, 80 for Brady and Book Club) and crosses it with stuff from movie-biz satires like Living in Oblivion or Tropic Thunder.

Performance Worth Watching: De Niro goes so ludicrously over-the-top BIG in this, it takes an hour for his blood pressure to wind down. That leaves Jones to be the heart of the story, thanks to a performance that steps outside the broadstroked screenplay and gives it a little soul.

Memorable Dialogue: Max feels rather strongly about James buying his beloved Paradise: “I’ll will that script to Ed Wood before I let you get your greasy f—ing hands on it!”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Gallo proved to be a master of the one-liner with Midnight Run, and he maintains some of his mojo for the old-school old-guy dark-comic silliness that is The Comeback Trail. Still, it’s hit-and-miss at best, with some of the zinger-laden dialogue benefitting from De Niro’s off-the-leash gonzo performance. Otherwise, the actor’s work could be interpreted as an overcompensation for the film’s limp slapstick comedy, inside-baseball movie-biz references and ankle-deep emotional overtures. And frankly, it doesn’t live up to the promise of its casting, as its trio of headlining veteran stars share very few scenes, the three of them coming together for one scene deep in the film; although it’s a relief that they aren’t asked to deliver any wheezy old-fart jokes about aching backs and incontinence, one can’t help but wonder why anyone would cast De Niro, Freeman and Jones if they’re not going to play off each other, and let iron sharpen iron.

Gallo instead stages his three principles as points on the moral spectrum: Freeman as a cold-blooded mobster whose affinity for classic Hollywood may be his weakness, Jones as the noble soul in a depressive rut and De Niro as an unstable sort wavering between visionary artist with a dream and unapologetic shysterdom. There are times when we wonder if De Niro’s Max is truly capable of staging another man’s death for material gain, but there’s little room for nuance in this screenplay, which struggles to balance the bleak chortles of a narcissistic movie star plummeting to his death with Looney Tunes-inspired scenes of De Niro getting walloped by a horse. Finding a happy tonal medium with such material is a near-impossible task.

And so The Comeback Trail clods along, unsure of what it wants to accomplish. It lacks the detail to be a treatise on aging (Clint Eastwood has made handfuls of better movies on the topic) or a satire of the post-mid-century exploitation-movie biz (see: the charming and spirited Eddie Murphy vehicle Dolemite is My Name). It exists in the why-bother mush zone where it diddles and fiddles with a few ideas and doesn’t settle on any of them. Drop some of the excess baggage, and it’s sort of almost but not really the story of a guy who reaches the stale and lonely end of the most desperate scheme in a life defined by desperate scheming, and sort of almost but not really finds his heart – and that doesn’t take into account the redemption arc of the Jones character, which feels like an afterthought. Considering the hooray-for-Hollywood ending, Gallo would like the movie to be a soft and squishy feelgood fable, but instead of fully committing to the bit, he just leans as far away as he can from the darker elements of the story without falling on his ass – and the result is a frustratingly unfocused movie that doesn’t make us laugh enough to overlook its flaws.

Our Call: The Comeback Trail might appeal to the TCM crowd if it had a tighter screenplay and better balanced its messy blend of sophisticated themes and lowbrow humor. But it’s little more than a bunch of aging fellas farting around without much direction. SKIP IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.