Update: In lieu of Jane Fonda’s recent comments suggesting the murder of pro-life supporters, we can no longer, in good conscience, keep 80 for Brady in our Worth It section, as we don’t believe that watching the movie is worth putting any money in her pockets.

Based on the true story of a group of elderly widowers from New England, 80 for Brady tells the tale of four friends and NE Patriot fans, played by Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Sally Field, and Rita Moreno, who want to share one last big adventure with one another.

80 For Brady

One day, four aging New England friends stumble upon the Patriots playing on the TV while one of the friends is recovering from chemotherapy. The next thing you know, they are hooked. They spend the next 15 years religiously following the Pats when one day they decide that they must go to the Super Bowl and root them on in person.

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The performances of its four leads aren’t groundbreaking, but they deserve all kinds of laurels nonetheless. Beneath several pounds of makeup and botox, and despite enough plastic surgery (Sally Field notwithstanding) to make Madonna tell them to “slow it down,” these four old gals exude more spunk than many people half their ages. Rita Moreno is 91 years old! The fact that she’s doing anything other than drooling into a cup and sharing a bowl of pudding with President Biden is amazing, but she’s downright vibrant in 80 for Brady, as are the three other leads.

The movie’s comedy is pretty much what you’d expect. There are a number of sex jokes. Sometimes the sex jokes are old people intentionally saying gross things and sometimes they are innocently saying things that they don’t know are gross…because they are old. 80 for Brady isn’t a one-trick pony though. The ladies get high too. In any other movie, these rather pedestrian offerings would fail but, the leads, the music, and the director manage to squeeze out enough charm and bubbly effervescence that you can’t help but smile throughout the entire film.

The contrivances that move the story along are telegraphed so hard that I wonder if the filmmakers didn’t pull a muscle. Nevertheless, again, it’s so d@mn charming that you mostly don’t care. Everyone knows that Sally Field is going to lose the Super Bowl tickets the moment that she’s handed them. It’s clear that the old birds will find some silly way to get into the game the second after the tickets are lost. But none of it matters. Lilly Tomlin’s always been cute and fun. 83-year-old Lilly Tomlin is grandma cute and fun. It just works.

My one true criticism about the film is the completely unnecessary inclusion of Tom Brady yelling an F-bomb. It was jarring and didn’t fit the moment, nor did it land comedically.

80 For Brady isn’t innovative, or particularly insightful or inspiring, but it is darn cute, and a light and breezy way to spend an hour and thirty-eight minutes.

WOKE ELEMENTS

The irony that I don’t have much to put in this section when talking about a film that features both Sally Field and Hanoi Jane, is not lost on me. However, I don’t.

I really only have two observations.

• Billy Porter is in it just to have a flamboyantly gay character in the film for the sake of having a flamboyantly gay character in the film. But he’s in it for such a small amount of time and his character has so little bearing on the film that it hardly matters.
• Sally Fields’s character’s husband is a disgusting beta male. But at least she doesn’t spend the movie belittling him. Instead, she actually helps him be a better man with love and out of love.