Play the Game

About a month or so ago we were looking for something to watch on streaming Netflix. We made a decision, we being not me that is, to watch this Andy Griffith vehicle.

Starring Griffith and Doris Roberts of Everyone Loves Raymond fame it certainly had an appeal for my wife's Mom. Nana loves Andy Griffith, don't we all.

The film centers around a young man named David who considers himself a ladies man. He does not have much of a relationship with his father so his Grandfather and he are very close. Grandpa Joe played by Andy Griffith misses his wife, being a widower is hard on him. He would like to date but has no clue. David teaches him some basics thinking he will use them to just ask a nice little old lady to have lunch but Grandpa Joe becomes a Casonova. Soon he is the Lothario of his nursing home.

In the meantime David is chasing the girl of his dreams, Julie, played by Marla Sokoloff. As we watched the movie she seemed very familiar but we could not place her. Google made us feel better when it informed us that she played Lucy on The Practice. She still looks very young, for that role having been so long ago.

In the end this movie is not that good. There are some laughs. It is a little raunchy in places. I think that if he had the chance to do it over that perhaps Andy Griffith might have preferred a movie like this, with lines delivered such as he gave in this movie, not be the last film credit he had. On the other hand he loved to work and he still had the ability to deliver a line with conviction.

The Andy Griffith show is a treasure and Griffith himself was. If you are an Andy fan, and who isn't, you might be better off not watching this one.