The prevailing narrative component of Finnegan\u2019s Foursome (now on VOD platforms like Prime Video) is a sound effect: THWUPP. THWUPP. THWUPP. No, it\u2019s not a helicopter. It\u2019s the distinctive timbre of a golf club slamming into a ball. To be more specific, it\u2019s the golfer using a wood to tee off, I think, probably, because it\u2019s a sport that ain\u2019t at all my thing. See, some of us are enamored by golf and some of us just aren\u2019t, and my allergy to watching or playing the game doesn\u2019t make me the target audience of the latest film by Edward Burns, who writes, directs and stars in his tribute to his favorite sport and his late mother. Touching, sure, but as the movie \u2014 another among his many breezy, talky dramedies \u2014 plays out, it becomes increasingly clear that non-golf people may want to direct their attention elsewhere.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
FINNEGAN\u2019S FOURSOME: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Gist: The Finnegan family likes golf. They play golf, they talk about golf, they work in golf, they dream about golf, they eat golf ball soup, they challenge me to write a single sentence of this review without dropping the word \u201cgolf\u201d in it. The patriarch is Jack (Ian McElhinney), a former pro, now 80ish, who arranges the annual family tradition, the Finnegan\u2019s Cup, a round of golf with his sons, Teddy (Brian d\u2019Arcy James) and Freddy (Burns). This is not leisurely golf, though. It\u2019s competitive for reasons that elude people who don\u2019t feel the need to place microbets on who can load the dishwasher the fastest, or whatever. Jack always wins and Freddy accuses his father of gamesmanship and psychological warfare, and knows for certain that Teddy\u2019s the favorite son and this sentence isn\u2019t complete yet because I haven\u2019t used the word \u201cgolf,\u201d so there it is.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, the grandchildren participate in the Cup, e.g., Freddy\u2019s musician son Frankie (Brian Muller), but not Teddy\u2019s daughter Marie (Erica Hernandez). Boy\u2019s club, see. So Freddy and Teddy and Frankie and Jack hit the links and just as Jack delivers the annual spiel about the Finnegan family\u2019s heirloom club and exposits that in all his years he\u2019s never seen anyone get a hole-in-one, Frankie hits a hole-in-one. Whether Jack actually saw it is the question. Heart attack. That\u2019s it. He\u2019s done with the back nine and on to golf Valhalla. To the clubhouse for cocktails and a steak with a loaded baked potato. He sunk a lot of putts and now he\u2019s sunk too.<\/p>\n
The movie skips past the grieving, memorials, and gifted casseroles so it may resume its signature light comedy. The old man wanted his ashes spread in four different locales in the family\u2019s native Ireland, the fertile crescent for golf. So Freddy and Teddy and Frankie and Marie, now allowed in, hit the Emerald Isle for 700 rounds of golf, give or take a couple, and we get to sit through every god damn one. Be grateful some are relegated to montages. Will Freddy get over his bitterness that his dad was always off golfing and missed the important moments? Will Teddy, a career author, overcome his writer\u2019s block? Will Frankie show any purpose in this plot? Will Marie prove her feminine mettle among all these men? Is any of this the point of the movie or are we merely here to watch them play golf, play golf and play golf, in that order?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Photo: Everett Collection<\/p>\n
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? For the signature Burns dramedy stylings, I kindly urge you to fire up The Family McMullen<\/a>, the 2025 sequel to his breakthrough \u201990s hit The Brothers McMullen<\/a>, over Finnegan, which assumes its audience likes to watch movies that make you feel like you\u2019re lugging a 900-lb. bag of clubs for 18 holes on a 98-degree day. Caddyshack<\/a> and Tin Cup<\/a> needn\u2019t worry about their status as the best golf movies ever.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Performance Worth Watching: James exudes what\u2019s best described as mild charisma as he counterbalances Burns\u2019 gently contrived mild prickliness.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sex And Skin: Not even a \u201cput one in the hole\u201d double-entendre.<\/p>\n Our Take: Note: Promotional consideration by that one specific Irish beer with the dense, foamy head, whose logo gets the foreground multiple times during a particularly glossy segment of this film, but hey, at least the product placement is culturally specific and relevant, right? Not to be too cynical about Finnegan\u2019s Foursome, which is calculated to be an easy-and-breezy love letter to one specific sport, and it ain\u2019t badminton. This is a movie strictly for people who get priapic about golf \u2014 or yonic, since we\u2019re avoiding sexism here, and let\u2019s face it, the sport is as much about holes as it is about clubs.\u00a0<\/p>\n For the rest of us, though, the joys are meager. Burns shows little interest in dramatic tension, formulating the film as a hangout movie in which we get to know the characters as they leisurely make their way through the roughs and greens of the cradle of golf civilization. The manner in which the Finnegan family members talk defines them as well as the manner in which they play golf, I think. (Although any nuance in style is either poorly represented or lost on those of us who prefer the relative fury of a rousing game of cornhole.) Although Jeff Muhlstock\u2019s cinematography shows clear affection for beautiful greenery, Burns runs out of interesting ways to shoot and present golfing after about 40 minutes. Just when you start feeling like the perpetual golfing may be dwindling, you check the progress bar and there\u2019s 49 more minutes of movie to go, 46 of which will inevitably depict golfing.\u00a0<\/p>\n The story, such as it is, progresses via brief interludes with Irish kin, one of whom might \u2014 GASP \u2014 sell the family property filled with all the trees planted for each and every Finnegan living or dead. But that\u2019s a sub-subplot to the driving and putting, and second fiddle to Freddy and Teddy\u2019s quasi-comical need to share a hotel room with one bed, since there was a booking error, and they lost a bet. Such drama! Wisely, Burns leans away from obvious golf-as-life metaphors, but that diverts the film\u2019s themes toward banal stuff about family legacies, traditions and togetherness.\u00a0<\/p>\n That approach also puts the emphasis on Burns\u2019 signature dialogue, which always drives his narrative, but in this case, isn\u2019t his best. Much of it is along the lines of, \u201cHey, remember that thing we did that now functions as exposition in a movie to flesh out our characters?\u201d The rest is formulaic quasi-banter \u2014 so much of it about Freddy and Teddy\u2019s tireless competitiveness, fostered by decades of their father\u2019s influence \u2014 or flush-to-the-nose sentimental observations like, \u201cAll four of us 10 feet from the pin? I\u2019d say the old man is here with us right now.\u201d I dunno, if old Jack was such a great guy, he might\u2019ve instilled in his children a broader interest in the world beyond golf golf golf golf golf.\u00a0<\/p>\n Our Call: Finnegan\u2019s Foursome is for golf diehards only, no ifs, ands or putts. SKIP IT.<\/p>\n John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The prevailing narrative component of Finnegan\u2019s Foursome (now on VOD platforms like Prime Video) is a sound effect:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9640,9641,9642,9643,44,9644,9645],"class_list":["post-23881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-brian-darcy-james","tag-comedies","tag-dramas","tag-ed-burns","tag-golf","tag-movie-reviews","tag-sports-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Photo: Everett Collection<\/p>\n