Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in 80 for Brady: Ageless Football Fans

It is a truth widely acknowledged, don’t mess with gray haired ladies, (and others in Barbarella wigs). Based on a true story of four fans in love with Tom Brady, the new movie, 80 for Brady, features the Frankie & Gracie team, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, plus Sally Field and Rita Moreno; these women look good at any age. One way or another, they are determined to make it to the Superbowl. Winning a contest, they now have tickets, and this being a road movie with some action-packed scenes in the field, albeit geriatric style, the comedy comes in how they get to Houston and make the big football scene.

Mishaps abound: lost and counterfeit tickets, slow movement as desire demands speed, life’s thornier issues of health, death, --and then there’s the question of how do you kidnap someone napping from a nursing home? Only Sally Field, an academic, has a partner, a fellow academic played by Bob Balaban, who insists that she advise him on a speech, oblivious to where she has fled, and so needy, he forgets to put on his pants. Forgetting is a good part of the joke.

Except that Jane Fonda’s character in an array of amazing wigs hasn’t forgotten how to flirt. It helps that a man she meets is played by Harry Hamlin, a heartthrob in television’s “Thirtysomething”—back in the day. He’s still got it, and so do the fabulous four, dancing their way into the stadium with the half-time hoofers led by Billy Porter. Lily Tomlin, the soul of this ensemble, delivers the “Oscar” speech. You cannot lose encouraging others to just get up. It works for the 80-somethings, and it works for Tom Brady.