Jim Gaffigan – STREAMING MOVIE NIGHT

Sometimes Love Needs A Tune-Up

Charlie (Madelaine Petsch) runs a struggling all-female auto shop that she inherited from her father, fighting to keep the business alive in Oakland. She’s fiercely independent but somewhat closed off, finding companionship mostly online where she exchanges anonymous car forum messages with Bullnose, someone who shares her obsession for classic Ford Broncos. Charlie prefers the predictable comfort of engines to the messiness of relationships, choosing her father’s Bronco Marge over any potential romantic encounter.

Across the street, a slick new Miller Boys corporate garage suddenly opens and threatens Charlie’s livelihood. Its local owner, Beau (Jacob Scipio), is charismatic and kind, but he’s really the competition and unknown to Charlie, he’s also her online confidant, Bullnose. While Beau secretly grapples with guilt about his job undermining Charlie, he also finds himself falling for her, both online and in person, resulting in a series of meet-cute mishaps—a shop visit for a classic car, a shared nail salon moment, and eventually, romantic tension that neither can deny.

The truth comes out at a car show, where Charlie realizes her online friend and business rival are the same man. Hurt, Charlie distances herself, but ultimately misses Beau and decides to take a chance on love despite the rivalry. In classic rom-com fashion, her friends Izzy (Madison Bailey) and Kam (Katy O’Brian) cheer her on. The story closes as Charlie and Beau unite both romantically and professionally, suggesting that sometimes both cars and hearts need a little maintenance to keep running.

Maintenance Required starts off strong with a fresh and fun idea, Charlie (Madelaine Petsch) running her dad’s all-female auto shop while unknowingly falling for Beau (Jacob Scipio), her charming business rival and online mystery man. The film pays homage to and borrows from the two classic Rom-Com movies The Shop Around The Corner and You’ve Got Mail. The first half is full of heart and promise, with some great character moments and a feel-good underdog vibe. But as the story moves into the second half, it starts to drag a bit and lose focus. The characters’ choices sometimes feel forced, and the plot leans on predictable rom-com clichés.

While there’s good chemistry between the leads and some laughs, the movie doesn’t quite hit the emotional notes it aims for, leaving the ending feeling a little flat. Overall, it’s an okay watch if you like light romantic comedies but don’t expect anything groundbreaking. And if you are a vintage car enthusiast, you might lose your mind at Beau sticking an EV engine in a classic Ford Bronco! Blasphemy!

2024 Lionsgate Films

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 52min

Action ~ Comedy ~ Crime ~ Thriller

Directed by: Potsy Ponciroli

Starring: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Tim Blake Nelson, Traci Lords, Jim Gaffigan, Uzo Aduba and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

FINDER$ KEEPER$

Will (Himesh Patel) and his expectant wife Paige (Lily James) have just moved to the small coastal Island Town of Providence, South Carolina. Will is starting a job as a Police Officer in the town’s Police Department. Will heads in for his first day on the job and after meeting Police Captain Murphy (Uzo Aduba), he is assigned to be Officer Terry Brogan’s partner. Terry (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has been with the police force for sixteen years and takes Will on a tour of the Island, starting with Tilly’s Coffee Shop where they can get free coffee. Then to Al’s Diner where they can get a free donut and a coffee.

Then Terry drives to a house where he tells Will that he needs to step inside and see his Chinese girlfriend briefly, and if he sees a middle aged Chinese businessman to honk the horn very loudly. As Will is waiting a call comes over the radio for a reported burglary. Will responds and tries to get Will’s attention with the horn to no avail. As Will pounds on the door, the woman’s husband comes home and Will decides he should leave and answer the call himself. He pulls up to the address they received the call from, draws his weapon and enters.

Virginia (Traci Lords) is wearing wireless headphones in the kitchen chopping carrots, when Will sees her he accidently discharges his weapon but misses Virginia. Furious that he shot at her, Virginia attacks Will and in the struggle falls with Virginia on his back. She crashes into the wooden dining room table and it splinters and impales Virginia, who instantly dies. Terry arrives immediately after to find out that Will, on his first day on the job, has just accidently killed the wife of the most well known businessmen on the island. Wallace Chetlo (Tim Blake Nelson), owner of Chetlo’s Shrimp Company, supplies all the seafood on the island and is one of the most successful and influential people on the island.

As Terry and Will try to make sense of what happened, Terry accidently kicks open a wicker basket and discovers it is full of stacks of cash. After looking at the cash, they hatch a plan to take the money and make it look like a burglary. That will get them in the clear of being involved in a homicide and they decide to hide the cash and sit on it until things blow over way down the line. They trash the house, get their alibi’s in order, wipe the scene clear of their presence and head down the road to pull over a vehicle and write a ticket so they have a concrete time alibi.

Which opens up a Pandora’s box of events that no-one sees coming. There is a witness who they find out was in the house at the time of the unintended killing of Virginia. Who is he? Where is he? Why was a million dollars in cash in the house to begin with? Is Virginia’s husband Wallace innocent? Or is their an extra-marital affair behind the curtain? Did the cops stumble onto a conspiracy involving Murder, Adultery, Insurance Policies, Hitmen and Greedy People and in doing so become Greedy people themselves??

That is where the journey turns into a web of deceit and double crossing by half the people on the island. It is a little bit of Fargo, a dash of A Simple Plan and a Pinch of The Ice Harvest brewed up into one wicked cauldron of deceit and greed. It was a nice surprise to see Tim Blake Nelson and Jim Gaffigan in two hilarious roles. Tim as the innocent man who just lost his wife to an unknown murderer in his own house and Jim as “The Irishman”, the competition to Tim’s co-conspirator, the Columbian. Nobody is whom they seem on the surface once you start digging and they realize there is a tremendous amount of money involved. Greedy People!

It is funny, it is violent, it is a whodunit and why caper full of action and misdeeds that draws everyone deeper down a rabbit hole from which they cannot escape. It is a fun, action packed and hilarious ride deep into the abyss of Greed, with twists and turns you just don’t expect.