To enjoy St. Vincent, you have to restrain yourself from thinking too hard about the plot. An old grouch and a precocious kid become neighbors and the most unlikely friends—roll fraternal montage. Even the most casually attentive viewer could create a rough storyboard of the film after most of the main characters have been introduced, and probably with a good deal of accuracy. But they won’t want to: it would be like turning on a GPS to navigate a familiar drive home from work. In spite of the film’s predictable storyline, what saves St. Vincent is ultimately its cast.

Bill Murray is reliably excellent as Vincent. His role as a curmudgeonly drunk serving as a crude paternal figure to a young lad—waif-thin Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher)—is nothing new, but Murray’s performance rises above tired portrayals of the ne’er-do-well scrooge. Thanks to Murray’s endearing charm, this foul-mouthed gambler can believably lie back in a lawn chair and sing Dylan’s “Shelter from the Storm” entirely off-key while watering a patch of dirt with a hose. This movie reminded me why I watch The Life Aquatic and Ghostbusters at least annually: Bill Murray. As for the other actors, Lieberher makes a charismatic Oliver, and Melissa McCarthy finds subtlety and wit in her role as Oliver’s mom, Maggie, which almost makes us forget Tammy. Almost.

St. Vincent will make you laugh throughout, largely thanks to these three actors. You might even embrace Naomi Watts’s role as a pregnant, amicable Russian stripper (yes, regrettably very real), or Terrence Howard, of all people, showing up as Vincent’s bookie. Writer and director Theodore Melfi is transparent in his pursuit to extract laughs and plant a lump in your throat, but between Murray’s facial expressions and Lieberher’s dance moves, you’ll probably end up chuckling and sniffling in spite of yourself.