My big dream in life is to be retired–the sooner the better in my opinion. It’s not that I’m chomping at the bit for a life of leisure (although I surely am); it’s that I want to pursue my interests on my terms, and do work that is more meaningful to me and creative. It would be nice to have enough financial security to just make my own daily schedule. I’m saving up for that day. 

This blog is a good example of what I’d like to do with my days. Do some writing, some graphic design, some reading–watch some films, take a hike, travel, etc. 

In The Retirement Plan (2023) we get to see what Nicolas Cage will be doing in his eventual retirement one day. Well, maybe not exactly that, but we do get to see how one of Cage’s many personas Matt Robins / Jim Benson handles his retirement; and what happens to him when he  is rudely pulled out of it for one last job. 

The World According to Matt / Jim 

There are quite a few cast of characters in this film, so bear with me as I unfold who they are so that we can (eventually) get introduced to Matt / Jim.

Jimmy (Jordan Johnson-Hinds), not Jim, is a driver who works for some bad people–a lower level crime boss Donnie (Jackie Earle Haley). 

Donnie works for a pretty big-time crime-boss Hector (Grace Byers), a criminal power player in Miami. Jimmy and his girlfriend Ashley (Ashley Greene) come up with a scheme to extricate Jimmy from Donnie’s employment by stealing a USB drive from Donnie with some important and potentially damaging information on it. Jimmy is secretly also an informant with the FBI and wants to give this USB over to them in exchange for his immunity / safety. But when Jimmy attempts to steal the USB drive, his co-conspirator Mitch gets shot and the plot is discovered by Donnie’s men. 

Fearing for his and his family’s life, Jimmy sends Ashley and their nearly-12 year old daughter Sarah (Thalia Campbell) out of Miami and down to the Cayman Islands where he hopes they will be safe and no one will find them. 

Meanwhile Jimmy plans to stay back and follow them as soon as he is able to talk to the FBI. Unfortunately, before Jimmy can meet with his FBI contact, he gets caught by Donnie’s thugs. When Ashley goes to the airport, there is only one available seat down to the Cayman Islands for the day and she decides to send her daughter Sarah down ahead of her where she will stay with her retired grandfather, Matt Robins or Jim Benson (Nicolas Cage) whom Ashley has not seen for a very long time. 

To protect the hard drive, Ashley puts it in Sarah’s backpack that she takes with her to the Caymans. 

In the Cayman Islands, long-haired retiree, Matt, day drinks a bit too much and spends his afternoons sleeping one off or fishing on the beach behind his cozy bungalow. When Sarah arrives at his home, Matt doesn’t recognize her until she shows him a picture of his daughter Ashley.

Back in Miami, Ashley and Jimmy’s lives are in danger since they have both been captured by an angry Donnie. Donnie sends Ashley, Bobo (Ron Perlman), and one of Donnie’s other thugs, The General (Ronnie James Hughes) down to the Cayman Islands to secure the hard drive from Sarah’s backpack. Bobo is given secret orders to get the hard drive and then kill the girl and her daughter after the job is done.

Unbeknownst to Ashley, Donnie, Bobo, Sarah or anyone else, Matt is a former CIA operative (a killer) that worked as an assassin or “arbitrator” for difficult political situation, thus his alias Jim Benson, but has been living out his forced retirement life in the Cayman Islands. 

After talking with Sarah, Matt pieces together that Ashley and Jimmy are in trouble and so he reaches out to an old contact in the FBI, Drisdale (Lynn Whitfield), to try and get information on the men who are threatening to kill his family. 

The next day Ashley, Bobo, and General show up at Matt’s house in the Cayman’s. Matt sort of sees them coming, and he has Sarah hide in his car. Matt pretends to be old and frail with a bad back. He then attacks General (kills him with a barbell) and fights off Bobo before getting shot (accidentally) by Ashley. Bobo escapes in Matt’s truck with Sarah inside. Bobo and Sarah hide out in an “out of the way” hotel waiting for Donnie to come to the Islands. 

Matt and Ashley happen to check into the same hotel in order to lie low while Matt gathers intelligence about his enemies. When more of Donnie’s goons show up, Matt ends up killing more of them. Matt and Ashley flee the hotel to find a more defensible position with his old military friend, Joseph (Ernie Hudson) but in so doing he gives up his location to Bobo. Once there, Matt learns what kind of information is stored on the hard drive; Donnie decides to go down to the Cayman Islands with an army of guys and take care of the situation himself. 

Further up the chain of corruption Hector reaches out to Christopher (Rick Fox) a prominent Miami politician to let him know that the hard drive is missing (which is problematic for him and her we are lead to believe). Christopher calls an unidentified source to get their assistance with this matter. 

Donnie and his army, including Bobo and Sarah, head out to the Marina where Matt, Joseph, and Ashley are to get the hard drive and eliminate the threat. To make this film even more complicated, Drisdale’s second in command at the FBI, Fitzsimmons, is the informant that was working with Jimmy to get the hard drive, but he is also working with Hector to get the hard drive (as some kind of double agent) AND he warns Hector against going after Matt since he knows that he used to be Special Ops and is “Rambo” dangerous. Bobo is tasked with killing Sarah while Donnie and his crew go after Matt and crew. 

Bobo doesn’t really want to kill the young girl Sarah, and is about to let her go, when she turns the tables on him, kicks him in the nuts, and escapes. Matt sees Donnie coming and puts his defense plan in place. Matt and Joseph end up killing most of Donnie’s men, but Joseph gets shot in the firefight. Bobo gets speargunned (RIP) by Ashley and falls (very awkwardly) overboard into the water. Donnie kidnaps Ashley and Sarah (once again) and escapes on a motorboat. He transports them off the island and back to Miami with the help of Hector and Fitzsimmons. Meanwhile Christopher and Drisdale seem to be communicating in the back and forth cat and mouse game of who is loyal to who and who are the good and bad guys in this film?

Hector and Donnie wait at Hector’s heavily guarded estate for Matt to come with the hard drive. Matt comes of course, but armed with an assault rifle. Drisdale informs Matt that Donnie has his daughter and that they are in Miami. She tells him that this is completely an unsanctioned mission but that they can help him from the sidelines if he gets to Miami. Drisdale seems to be using Matt to remove Hector and seize the hard drive (or is she saying this to make Fitzsimmons believe it is true.) 

Matt assassinates a whole bunch of armed guards at Hector’s estate. Donnie keeps Sarah and Ashley close by with Hector while they wait for him to arrive. Donnie gets the drop on Matt and asks him to give him the hard drive. At gunpoint, he does. Donnie threatens to kill Matt’s family right in front of him for what he has done. Hector demands that Donnie give her the drive. Instead Donnie shoots Hector in the head. Donnie turns the gun on Matt, but is shot himself by the new arrival, Fitzsimmons who shows up with Drisdale. Drisdale asks Matt for the real drive. He gives it to her. Drisdale shoots Fitzsimmons and gives the drive to the next arrival, Christopher whom Drisdale says Matt can trust. 

Christopher tells Matt that they’ve been trying to shut down Hector’s operations along the east coast for a long time and that Jimmy had been informing on them for about 6 months. Fitzsimmons was a mole. He was planning to give the drive back to Hector. Christopher is running for governor for the state of Florida and the drive gives him the leverage he needs as well as the “feather in his cap” of shutting down Hector’s crime organization. 

Disgruntled, Matt, feels used, but has no recourse other than to go to the press, but he decides not to. Instead he takes the speedboat that Chistopher is offering as well as immunity for his family. The name of the boat is the Midnight Moon and he rides it presumably down to the Cayman Islands.

What It Might Have Been

This film was overly complicated and yet intellectually not very engaging. Too many characters, too many double-crosses, too much going on in a film that was sort of marketed as a funny “old man” crime-action film. I didn’t know what to expect and what I got was different from my expectations. In some ways this felt like a less inspired (or poorly executed) Get Shorty or knock-off Elmore Leonard novel where the cast of characters are morally complex and their crossing paths lead to often tragic consequences. 

I’m curious how this film might have been different had it been directed / written by the likes of Quentin Tarantino, The Coen Brothers or the folks behind the new Fargo TV series. It just didn’t really hit on the right notes and there are much better realized films within the criminal comedy subgenre. 

Nicolas Cage was also strange in this role. Sometimes he seemed to be talking like an English gentlemen, “What, pray tell, are you doing here?” and other times he was taking on a sort of Northeastern academic accent and then he would default into his more frantic / erratic Nicolas Cage tantrum voice.  

The comedy comes (I guess?) in the fact that Matt is supposed to be an old guy, well into his retirement, but he still has the physician ability to John Wicks-annihilate everybody in his path. He kills guys as easy as pie. He’s a “cold-blooded” killer according to his friend Joseph who has a certain set of skills, and yet he still cares deeply for his daughter (whom he has been estranged from for a decade or more) and wants to protect his family. I think it’s supposed to be funny because it’s unexpected? But it just didn’t really do much for me. 

I spent most of my time trying to figure out who was conniving and scheming against who and what was on this hard drive that everyone wanted to kill for. 

Evidently it was just (spoiler) political leverage and a means to take down an east coast crime syndicate. I was not enthused by this ending or this discovery. A big body count for not so many laughs and not so satisfying of a winner (e.g. former NBA star playing an apiring governor of Florida who now gets to have his way with his political rivals). 

What Was Good 

There were some good cameos in this. A couple recurring actors from other Nicolas Cage films (Ron Perlman, Jackie Earle). I think Bobo steals the show here as Donnie’s big “dumb” heavy who can kill people in a heartbeat, but also happens to read Shakespeare and correct other people’s vocabulary gaffs. Donnie was also a good, weaselly sort of villain who you enjoyed hating and seeing get his come-uppance. And Ernie Hudson is always a refreshing surprise in any film he’s in. He’s underrated and should be cast in more roles of notoriety. 

As I mentioned previously, I wasn’t really tracking with Nicolas Cage in this film, but this viewing would have been ten times worse for me WITHOUT his presence so I’m glad that he was the “old guy” they chose to cast here. 

First for Nicolas Cage character as Matt

• Appearing in a film with one of the original Ghostbusters
• Playing a guy in his late 60s
• Offering a grandchild soda water to drink
• Sleeping on a crusty looking futon. 
• Living in a beach house.
• Dumping a dead body in the ocean with his daughter
• Hanging from a hotel balcony
• Catching a gun mid-air (thrown by a 12 year old) and then falling into a body of water.

Recurrences

• Appearing in a film with Ron Perlman (Season of the Witch)
• Appearing in a film with Jackie Earle Haley (Mandy)
• Wearing a loud Hawaiin shirt (Honeymoon in Vegas)
• Contract killer for hire (Bangkok Dangerous, Kill Chain)
• Dropping a wounded person off at the hospital (Bringing Out the Dead)

Quotables

“It’s OK, little girl. I’m not going to hurt you. You scared the shit out of me.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” [Asking a little girl.]

“I might have some bologna sandwiches. You like bologna?”

“I’m all out of cold cuts, but I do have some crunchy shit.” 

“But enough about my CURRENT electrical CURRENT issues. What, pray tell, are you doing here?”

“I worked for Uncle Sam, the government, yeah.”

“Once you hit 60, the warranty is up you know what I mean?” 

“Ashley, what’s the dapper dandy talkin’ about?” 

“DID YOU SHOOT ME?” 

“I’m guessing the Jerry Louis telethon isn’t on here.” 

“Hand me a sack of shit, tell me it’s fish and chips.”

Conclusion

There are much better Nicolas Cage offerings than The Retirement Plan. It can hold your attention for a while, but I wouldn’t call it highly gripping, highly entertaining, funny, or interesting. If you are retired, I suppose, and looking for some way to kill 90s minutes on a rainy Saturday (and you happen to love the great Nicolas Cage) this might be right up your alley. But I’d probably turn to a slough of others; his especially good or epically bad films would be the default before I’d turn to this one. But that’s just me. 

Some people really like shuffleboard, and who am I to judge?