Bill Murray plays a broke, gambling-addicted curmudgeon who befriends a young boy in St. Vincent, a well made and entertaining comedy-drama that suffers from only one weakness: it’s a story we’ve seen many times before.

Not dissimilar from Gran Torino, only without Clint Eastwood, gang members and bad amateur actors, St. Vincent follows a tried-and-true formula you’ve seen many times before:

• Fatherless boy, left to his own devices while his mother is at work, becomes friends with an older man who hates the world.
• Despite being an angry asshole, the old man helps the boy come into his own, which usually involves teaching him how to fight bullies.
• The two become inseparable and the old man becomes a little less of an asshole.

Sound familiar? This recycled narrative is what keeps St. Vincent from being anything more than what it is, an entertaining, feel-good little movie that stars Bill Murray. But at least it’s still an entertaining, feel good little movie that stars Bill Murray.

St. Vincent, which also stars Melissa McCarthy (in a surprisingly non-funny role) and Naomi Watts (in a surprisingly sort-of funny role), features several quality performances. Neither McCarthy nor Watts are at their best, but they appear to have had fun in their roles. Young  Jaeden Lieberher, in his first role, is really good. But it’s Murray who is at his finest here, delivering his best performance since 2003’s Lost in Translation.

St. Vincent suffers from an overly used plot, but it’s still one of the better movies of the year. And Bill Murray playing a curmudgeonly asshole? Why wouldn’t you want to watch that?

Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.