Riff Raff

John Pollono's sister had just been through a brutal divorce when he started writing the stage play that became 'Riff Raff'. That heartache, plus the stories about Boston gangster Whitey Bulger he grew up hearing, turned into a black comedy that Dito Montiel ('A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints') has now brought to the screen. When Montiel read it, it struck him as a kind of 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' with a whole family of Virginia Woolfs.

Vincent (Ed Harris) has put his criminal past behind him and lives quietly with his wife Sandy (Gabrielle Union) and her son DJ, who's about to leave for college. They're seeing in the new year at their place in Maine when Rocco (Lewis Pullman), the son Vincent disowned, turns up unannounced with his pregnant girlfriend Marina and Ruth (Jennifer Coolidge), Vincent's ex-wife.

This isn't a social call. They've come with a warning: two gangsters, Leftie (Bill Murray) and Lonnie (Pete Davidson), are coming for them. And while they wait, the secrets and white lies this family has been sitting on for years start spilling out.

The cast was meant to look different: Dustin Hoffman and Brian Cox signed on in 2023 and were later replaced by Murray and Harris. Montiel hired cinematographer Xavier Grobet after watching 'The White Lotus', the show where, as he tells it, he discovered Coolidge. It was shot in New Jersey in late 2023, even though the story's set in Maine.

It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2024 and opened in US cinemas on 28 February 2025, finishing 11th on its first weekend. Signature Entertainment handled it in the UK. Critics were split: they enjoyed the cast but expected more laughs from a lineup like this.

• Crime
• Comedy
• Drama