The prevailing narrative component of Finnegan’s Foursome (now on VOD platforms like Prime Video) is a sound effect: THWUPP. THWUPP. THWUPP. No, it’s not a helicopter. It’s the distinctive timbre of a golf club slamming into a ball. To be more specific, it’s the golfer using a wood to tee off, I think, probably, because it’s a sport that ain’t at all my thing. See, some of us are enamored by golf and some of us just aren’t, and my allergy to watching or playing the game doesn’t 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 — another among his many breezy, talky dramedies — plays out, it becomes increasingly clear that non-golf people may want to direct their attention elsewhere.
FINNEGAN’S FOURSOME: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
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 “golf” in it. The patriarch is Jack (Ian McElhinney), a former pro, now 80ish, who arranges the annual family tradition, the Finnegan’s Cup, a round of golf with his sons, Teddy (Brian d’Arcy James) and Freddy (Burns). This is not leisurely golf, though. It’s competitive for reasons that elude people who don’t 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’s the favorite son and this sentence isn’t complete yet because I haven’t used the word “golf,” so there it is.
Sometimes, the grandchildren participate in the Cup, e.g., Freddy’s musician son Frankie (Brian Muller), but not Teddy’s daughter Marie (Erica Hernandez). Boy’s 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’s heirloom club and exposits that in all his years he’s 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’s it. He’s 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’s sunk too.
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’s 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’s 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?
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? For the signature Burns dramedy stylings, I kindly urge you to fire up The Family McMullen, the 2025 sequel to his breakthrough ’90s hit The Brothers McMullen, over Finnegan, which assumes its audience likes to watch movies that make you feel like you’re lugging a 900-lb. bag of clubs for 18 holes on a 98-degree day. Caddyshack and Tin Cup needn’t worry about their status as the best golf movies ever.
Performance Worth Watching: James exudes what’s best described as mild charisma as he counterbalances Burns’ gently contrived mild prickliness.
Sex And Skin: Not even a “put one in the hole” double-entendre.
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’s Foursome, which is calculated to be an easy-and-breezy love letter to one specific sport, and it ain’t badminton. This is a movie strictly for people who get priapic about golf — or yonic, since we’re avoiding sexism here, and let’s face it, the sport is as much about holes as it is about clubs.
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’s 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’s 49 more minutes of movie to go, 46 of which will inevitably depict golfing.
The story, such as it is, progresses via brief interludes with Irish kin, one of whom might — GASP — sell the family property filled with all the trees planted for each and every Finnegan living or dead. But that’s a sub-subplot to the driving and putting, and second fiddle to Freddy and Teddy’s 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’s themes toward banal stuff about family legacies, traditions and togetherness.
That approach also puts the emphasis on Burns’ signature dialogue, which always drives his narrative, but in this case, isn’t his best. Much of it is along the lines of, “Hey, remember that thing we did that now functions as exposition in a movie to flesh out our characters?” The rest is formulaic quasi-banter — so much of it about Freddy and Teddy’s tireless competitiveness, fostered by decades of their father’s influence — or flush-to-the-nose sentimental observations like, “All four of us 10 feet from the pin? I’d say the old man is here with us right now.” I dunno, if old Jack was such a great guy, he might’ve instilled in his children a broader interest in the world beyond golf golf golf golf golf.
Our Call: Finnegan’s Foursome is for golf diehards only, no ifs, ands or putts. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.