Streaming Sleepers: In DON’T MESS WITH GRANDMA, Michael Jai White Saves The Day By Sunset!
Jason Krawczyk’s Don’t Mess With Grandma comes with a title that’s a little more generic than I expected, but it certainly speaks to the comical and whimsical tone that it delivers from start to finish. The Michael Jai White headliner is currently streaming on Tubi, and for that matter, also casts Billy Zane in a role that is purely unrecognizable to the naked eye.
Point in fact, I didn’t even know Zane was in this film until the credits rolled. He plays Stan, one of the leaders of a bumbling gang of home invaders trying to collect valuable assets and copper items to make money. His latest target? The home of an elderly woman (Jackie Richardson) whose grandson, JT (White) just happens to be an alcoholic ex-Army ranger who delivers meals to senior citizens.
What ensues is total action comedy folly as JT, on the day he’s supposed to be fixing his grandmother’s sink, finds him fending off the dubious burglars’ attempts to break in with the help of her American Bully, Rufus. That means surpressing the incursion at each corner of the house without her knowing, or even sensing something is wrong or out of the norm.
White is his usual impressionable self on screen, which he compensates by adapting to a character with his own penchants and sensibilities. It adds to the film’s light-hearted touch as a genre romp that isn’t afraid to get a little R-rated at times in the violence, including when an off-camera moments lands one burglar with his throat obliterated in gory fashion.
Scenes like these prompt some of the more touching and personal moments between JT and granna, and scenes throughout as JT trades wits and blows with the burglars, and often with a slew of gags and hijinks. The climatic finale delivers in roaring fashion with a title track (by 80s rock band, Dio) that would’ve been the film’s title were it not for the change. The good news here is that it still works in whole.
Tubi is loaded with a bevy of White starrers on its platform, and I wasn’t aware of Don’t Mess With Grandma until our own Matt told me. If this title hasn’t popped out on your main page yet, consider yourselves invited to Tubi to enjoy Krawczyk’s latest delight.
