Review: Last Vegas

Four lifelong friends get together for the Vegas wedding of Billy (Michael Douglas), to his considerably younger bride-to-be (or at least, they’re around for the bachelor party). Morgan Freeman is Archie, who uses the opportunity to escape his domestic life being babied by his well-meaning family after recent health issues. Mild-mannered retiree Sam (Kevin Kline), meanwhile, is afforded the opportunity by his wife (Joanna Gleason, nice to see her on screen again) to have a ‘hall pass’ for the weekend, to maybe help revive their recently unexciting marriage. And then there’s cranky widow Paddy (Robert De Niro), who practically has to be dragged kicking and screaming to the event, due to some past bad blood between he and Billy, that has never been properly resolved. Mary Steenburgen plays a third-rate Vegas singer who inevitably causes yet another problem between Paddy and Billy. Jerry Ferrara plays a young schmuck who antagonises the guys, Roger Bart plays a drag queen, and Romany Malco plays the hotel employee looking after the guys, but would much rather be looking after 50 Cent, rumoured to be partying at the hotel.

 

This 2013 all-star bit of fluff from director Jon Turtletaub (“Cool Runnings”, “National Treasure”) and screenwriter Dan Fogelman (“Cars”, AKA “Doc Hollywood: The Animated Movie”) is nothing special, but far from the worst film of this type. It’s more “Grumpy Old Men” or “Space Cowboys” than “The Hangover” for geriatrics that you might be expecting, but being that I strongly dislike “The Hangover” series, I was fine with that.

 

I was considerably less fine with the not-so age appropriate casting. Kevin Kline was 66 years-old at the time here, but had I not looked that up I would’ve assumed he was in his late 50s. He just doesn’t seem old enough to hang out with the rest of these guys, even though he’s only a few years younger than Michael Douglas. Dude has got good genes, it has to be said, not to mention an innate brightness and vitality that suggests someone younger. Someone on set seems to have realised Kline doesn’t look his age, and they’ve given him grey/white hair to make him look older. Yeah…nice try, but no. He’s still about ten years younger than Morgan Freeman, and more importantly, looks it. These four guys, great stars and all, just don’t look the same age, and based on the prologue, they really ought to be cast closer together in age (Then again this is a film that has them starting out at what looks like age 11 at the youngest and cutting to ‘58 years later’. Do the math, even Douglas would be pushing it to be that old, let alone Kline!). It’s actually quite distracting, though I have the benefit of knowing how old Freeman and Robert De Niro are (Had to look up the other two, admittedly). Others may be less distracted, though I still think someone who looks and is more age appropriate would’ve been better (Dustin Hoffman, James Caan, Harvey Keitel, Danny Aiello, etc.) As for the performances themselves, well they’re a mixed bag. Freeman is by far the most impressive, he glides through this like he’s having the time of his life and easily walks off with the entire thing. He’s a lot of fun to watch. Kline, despite looking too young, is as affable as ever, and given the somewhat sleazy mission his character is on, it’s a smart thing to cast a guy who is difficult to hate. I mean, this is the guy who played two of the biggest jerks in the history of comedic cinema in “A Fish Called Wanda” and “I Love You to Death”, and yet…you couldn’t help finding him somewhat charming at the same time. Only Kevin Kline could get away with something like that, let alone the line he has here after turning down sex with a hot younger woman. I won’t spoil it, but it’s funny (Best line goes to Freeman, though, and I will spoil it: (In reference to Douglas’ bride-to-be) ‘Billy, I have a haemorrhoid that’s almost 32!’). He has a good bit here where they are all trying to be intimidating mob guys, and Kline is comically unconvincing.

 

After Freeman and Kline, the next best performer is rather surprisingly Mary Steenburgen. I’ve never been the biggest fan of hers, and I initially thought her too sweet, demure, and Southern-sounding to convince as a Vegas singer, but…damn it, her winning personality more than makes up for whatever initial misgivings one might have about her. I would’ve cast someone closer to a Sheree North or Ann-Margaret type (not sure who that would be, though. Melanie Griffith, probably, but she’s a much lesser actress. Susan Sarandon or Jennifer Coolidge, perhaps?), but she’ll do. Michael Douglas is absolutely perfectly cast as the guy getting married to someone half his age (at least), but he actually doesn’t have that much screen time, which is a shame. He’s a helluva lot better company than Robert De Niro, however. Playing the sourpuss of the quartet, he gets nothing amusing to do or say and gives yet another of his all-too frequent pay check-cashing performances. He brings up the rear, here I’m afraid, and after good work in “Silver Linings Playbook” and “American Hustle”, it’s really disappointing, though this is much lighter material I guess. Both his character and performance are boring, though I’m guessing his ability to pull in a favour with 50 Cent (whom he appeared with in the terrible cop flick “Freelancers”) helped the director quite a bit. Quite an amusing use of Jerry Ferrara as a young jerk who isn’t as tough as he thinks, but if Romany Malco is under the impression that he’s hilarious here, he’s alone in that belief. It’s an old joke, but Roger Bart’s first appearance works here because he’s quite simply the ugliest drag queen in cinematic history (And I’ve seen Divine and Terence Stamp).

 

One benefit of hiring these specific four main stars is that they each have very different personalities and bring very different baggage with them. Unfortunately, none of them brought along a good script. This is neither the best nor worst of its type, but it’s nice and sometimes nice is almost enough. Is it a good movie? Nope, but these are great stars having fun. That carries this film further than some films with less interesting stars at least. You’d have to be a curmudgeon to actively hate this one, but it certainly should’ve been better.

 

Rating: C+