Four "old" men, friends from childhood, go to Las Vegas to give one of them a bachelor party in "Last Vegas," a 2013 film starring Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Kline.
Since the movies often overlook age in casting mother-son and friends, I'll say right off -- there's a ten-year gap between the oldest, Freeman, at 77, and the youngest, Kline though they are supposed to be similarly-aged contemporaries. DeNiro is 71 this year and Douglas is 70; at the time of the filming, they were all a little younger.
The plot allows many opportunities for humor, and "Last Vegas" mines some of them. The funniest scene for me was the simplest -- Freeman sitting on his window ledge, the camera giving us the impression that he is about to make a risky jump to escape his family and go on the trip, and then, as he is on the first floor, hopping a couple of inches onto the grass.
There's poignancy in this film as well, though it's not in any way overly sentimental, and most of that occurs with the rivalry between the Douglas and DeNiro characters. In the old days, both were in love with the same woman, whom DeNiro married, and she has since passed away. DeNiro hates Douglas, now about to marry a 30-year-old, for not showing up at his wife's funeral. Douglas also has a monologue about the passage of time. Since I'm an aging baby boomer, I would have loved a little more of that in the movie because man, it does go fast.
I found this a warm, fun movie about enduring friendship, being old doesn't mean you're dead, and that the elderly have a lot to offer the young and can be appreciated by them.
Since the movies often overlook age in casting mother-son and friends, I'll say right off -- there's a ten-year gap between the oldest, Freeman, at 77, and the youngest, Kline though they are supposed to be similarly-aged contemporaries. DeNiro is 71 this year and Douglas is 70; at the time of the filming, they were all a little younger.
The plot allows many opportunities for humor, and "Last Vegas" mines some of them. The funniest scene for me was the simplest -- Freeman sitting on his window ledge, the camera giving us the impression that he is about to make a risky jump to escape his family and go on the trip, and then, as he is on the first floor, hopping a couple of inches onto the grass.
There's poignancy in this film as well, though it's not in any way overly sentimental, and most of that occurs with the rivalry between the Douglas and DeNiro characters. In the old days, both were in love with the same woman, whom DeNiro married, and she has since passed away. DeNiro hates Douglas, now about to marry a 30-year-old, for not showing up at his wife's funeral. Douglas also has a monologue about the passage of time. Since I'm an aging baby boomer, I would have loved a little more of that in the movie because man, it does go fast.
I found this a warm, fun movie about enduring friendship, being old doesn't mean you're dead, and that the elderly have a lot to offer the young and can be appreciated by them.