STAND UP GUYS Review

Stand Up Guys is a stand up film about friendship and mortality, about life and how time waits for no man. It is an enjoyable and sometimes poignant film that breezes by at an hour and a half and rises above its tired script with three performances that aren't phoned it but truly felt. The magic of the film is that it captures each of its actors in that perfect stage of life. Though both Christopher Walken and Al Pacino do a fair amount of films each year (plenty of which can be horrible) there is something about this film that brings them together and instead of using their images and stature as some kind of inside joke or piece of propoganda to lure in audiences they are treated like actual human beings. Well, as far as human beings who were once crooks and gang members might be humanized. I think Christopher Walken gave one of the best performances of his later career in last falls Seven Psychopaths and while this role doesn't allow him the range of that character his reclusive Doc here is something of a different man in general. Doc is what anchors the film and though Pacino gets the flashier role of Val and Arkin is here for purely comic relief and realization, Doc is the guy who has given the situation time and perspective and Walken does a fine job of doing a lot with a little. I enjoyed Stand Up Guys immensely despite it taking the easy way out every now and again (especially with the humor). We can see the jokes coming from a mile away and I would have much rather had some natural banter between the two leads. The complacent direction from Fisher Stevens help nothing about the film stand out either but he should be more than thankful his actors are more than capable of getting the point across.