Boomer Review: Call­ing It Quits

I have a soft spot in my heart for com­fort­able, feel-​good movies. Some­times, I’m just not in the mood to be blown away by spe­cial effects, or to be emo­tion­ally drug all over the the­ater, or to laugh myself silly.

When I’m in that sort of mood, a film like Call­ing It Quits is just what the doc­tor ordered.

It’s one of those lit­tle indy films that went straight to DVD. Often, you never know what you’re going to get with those bad boys, but rest assured: this is a won­der­ful movie.

It stars easy-​going Den­nis Bout­sikaris as Dante Mile­stone. Dante is a suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man who is under­go­ing a mid-​life cri­sis. The rat-​race is too much for the fifty-​something, and he decides to retire early and try to find the pas­sion for life that he once had.

He is accom­pa­nied in his search by best buddy Jake (Robert Clo­hessy), who encour­ages him to find some­thing, ANY­THING to get his head back in the game.

Early retire­ment gives Dante a bad case of too much time with him­self, and he is soon out of the house seeking…

Along the way, Dante notices the per­sis­tent hap­pi­ness of the man­ager of the store where he buys his cigs. “Are you really happy, or are you just a good busi­ness­man?” he asks. The answer sends him on his own jour­ney for ful­fill­ment, some­thing he hasn’t felt since he was a pas­sion­ate artist in high school.

We are treated to flash­backs of that time in Dante’s life, includ­ing his meet­ing of the girl of his dreams, Alba. We see the fate­ful day where he tells her that he’s get­ting into the adver­tis­ing game “tem­porar­ily,” just to get enough money to fund his art. We can all guess how THAT turned out.

We are also shown the tragic turn that took Alba away from him, start­ing him on his spi­ral that even­tu­ally led to call­ing it quits.

Lastly, we see the ulti­mate answer he seeks, found with the help of spir­i­tu­al­ist Cynthia.

Call­ing It Quits is a laid-​back film, but a per­fect one for a rainy evening. And if you’ve felt like you’ve lost your own way through life’s tra­vails, you’ll find a spe­cial enjoy­ment in watch­ing Dante stum­ble around and finally find an answer that works.