Review: 80 for Brady

As someone who doesn’t despise Tom Brady as much as, well, the world, I do understand why 80 for Brady would drive Brady-haters up the gotdamn wall. After all, it is a movie where four old ladies —played by four legendary ladies — practically pray to the altar of Tom (which, of course, consists of several Tom Brady bobbleheads).

Brady (who also produced this film) gets Lily Tomlin and Oscar winners Jane Fonda, Sally Field, and Rita Moreno to play a quartet of New England Patriots-loving pals (based on an actual group of lady octogenarians called the Over 80 for Brady Club) who win tickets to the 2017 Super Bowl, where the Pats went up against the Falcons.

These ladies are a motley, frisky bunch. Lou (Tomlin) is a cancer survivor who organizes the once-in-a-lifetime event. Trish (Fonda) is a wig-wearing minx who writes Rob Gronkowski fan fiction and still falls in love with dudes too quickly. (Fonda is practically playing the same character she played in Book Club, that other movie about wildin’ old ladies. The sequel’s in May, BTW.) Although she’s got a home, Maura (Moreno) has been living in a swanky retirement community ever since her husband died. And Betty (Field) is a math geek who mostly solves problems for her absent-minded scholar husband (Bob Balaban, of course).

Needless to say, once they get to Houston, they get into a bunch of mildly wacky shit, from hanging with Guy Fieri after Betty competes in a hot wing-eating contest to getting fucked up on weed gummies at a party. Fieri isn’t the only accommodating, familiar face these chicks get to chill with; during that party, high roller Maura ends up in a card game with Billy Porter, Patton Oswalt, and Marshawn Lynch, while Lou and Betty are outside grooving with that bathrobe-wearing music man Marc Rebillet. Yeah, these senior sisters always end up in the right place at the right time, and that’s especially true when Brady and the Pats need some help during that game. For those who don’t remember what happened, I won’t spoil it for you. (I do remember watching that game and dozing off on a sectional, while a couple of friends were losing their shit on the other side.)

It’s always crazy seeing legendary movie stars of yesteryear slumming it all to hell as goofy old people in a silly-ass comedy. A decade ago, Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Kevin Kline, and Morgan Freeman got their Hangover on as grumpy old men in Sin City in Last Vegas; now we get the feminine equivalent of that. Director Kyle Marvin (who last directed the bitter buddy comedy The Climb) and writers Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins (who apparently both created that failed Malin Akerman sitcom Trophy Wife) keep the humor cute and inoffensive. Things do start to get cringey as fuck when they get to the Big Game — there’s even a gotdamn dance number!

But as delightful as it is to see Tomlin, Fonda, Moreno, and Field together on the big screen, 80 for Brady is really a cinematic tribute to Tom Brady and how freakin’ magnificent he is. On several occasions, Lou imagines Brady giving her pep talks through jumbotron screens. (She later returns the favor in one absurdly mawkish scene.) And the last 20 minutes is practically a highlight reel with scenes of the actresses spliced in.

80 for Brady is here to show you that Tom Brady (who as I’m writing this, has finally retired from football) was amazing enough in his prime to inspire elderly women to live their best lives. But what it really does is get four iconic women together to star in a 98-minute, self-congratulatory stroke job to the man.