Thirty years after “The Brothers McMullen,” the writer, director, and actor Edward Burns looks preserved in amber — his hair and beard have some silver, but at 58 he’s still lean and handsome in that prince-of-the-working-class Irish-American way. And it’s not just Burns who’s more or less unchanged; so is his filmmaking style. “Finnegan’s Foursome” is his 16th feature, and he’s still doing that shaggy-likable, spiky-quaint, semi-low-budget Edward Burns dramedy thing — the script that’s talky and kind of funny, though in a way that often sounds like a script; the camerawork that never strays too far from the functional; the acting that hovers between lively and broad. The style Burns works in is now closer to television than movies, and given that “Finnegan’s Foursome” is getting a streaming release (starting today), you could say it’s a minor indie movie that has found its rightful home.
It’s a sports comedy, about golf and Ireland and family conundrums (it would be overstating it to call them demons), and a key thing that might put you in the audience demo for it is if you happen to be a serious golfer. It’s a movie spun out of the love of the game. Burns, who first shows up in a samurai man-bun, plays Freddy Finnegan, a wealthy clothing entrepreneur who seems to have a happy and settled life, except that he’s got anger-management issues, all stemming from his rivalrous relationship with his irascible Irish father, Jack (Ian McElhinney).
