Goldstein and his partner John Francis Daley write big pictures as if they were small comedies about people out of their depth, and the films are best when they stay that size. When the fights take over, the jokes thin and the screen goes grey.
Fi1m perspective
A sorcerer who cannot make a spell work when anyone is watching. That is Justice Smith's Simon in Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (2023), and he is Jonathan Goldstein's kind of hero in one figure: capable enough, nervous about it, and funnier for the nerves than for the jokes. The film around him is a heist comedy that happens to have wizards in it, fond of its source rather than solemn about it. Goldstein has spent most of his career putting that sort of person into that sort of frame.
He came to it sideways. He left corporate law for television sitcoms in the late 1990s, met Daley on The Geena Davis Show, and the two have written together ever since, eight films so far. Horrible Bosses (2011) was the screenplay that got them noticed. Vacation (2015) and Game Night (2018) put them behind the camera, and Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and the Dungeons & Dragons film brought their habits to studio properties. Not every early comedy was as sure-footed; The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013) was received doubtfully on its execution.
The habit is to treat the genre as a place to put a school comedy or a heist. Goldstein and Daley have said they went into Homecoming meaning to lean into the high-school side of Peter Parker rather than the tragedy of his origin, and it shows: the film works best when Tom Holland's Peter is late for everything and Michael Keaton's villain is worrying about his mortgage. Honour Among Thieves borrows the rhythms of Game Night, ordinary people caught in a plot too big for them, and gives Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez an ease the script never spoils by making them a couple. Hugh Grant does the smiling liar he does now, and is delighted to be caught at it.
The limit is the same in both films we have reviewed. Homecoming gets murkier the higher it climbs. Honour Among Thieves is a pleasure while five people bicker in a graveyard and a druid runs through a castle as an owlbear, and then the fights get bigger and it turns loud, grey and long. We laughed more than we expected to at the graveyard, and by the last stretch we were watching the clock, because nothing on screen felt as though it could hurt anyone. What The Princess Bride had, and this lacks, is a danger we believed in between the jokes.
The next one is Mayday. We hope somebody keeps the budget away from the third act.
Biography
Jonathan Michael Goldstein is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He frequently collaborates with John Francis Daley, whom he met while working on the television series The Geena Davis Show. Their joint credits include the screenplay for Horrible Bosses (2011) and co-directing Vacation (2015) and Game Night (2018).
Goldstein began his career writing for television sitcoms including The PJs, Good Morning Miami, Four Kings and The New Adventures of Old Christine. He later contributed to the screenplays for Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013). With Daley he directed and co-wrote the screenplay for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023).
He studied at the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School before moving into entertainment.
