“Last Vegas” screened as the Chicago International Film Festival’s Surprise Screening. This early review is merely an impression of the version screened.
One would hope that a movie called “Last Vegas” might be the last time some legendary actors starred in such a simple, dumb comedy to be humiliated. Somehow such a thing seems unlikely, especially when this is hardly the first time Robert De Niro has signed up for such a pitiful exploit.
The difference is that Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline and De Niro will all likely survive “Last Vegas” mostly unscathed. Jon Turtletaub’s film is unfunny enough to be listless, a litany of Vegas set pieces with old people that are hardly even designed to be funny, and yet it still manages to fall far short of the kind of outrageous raunch and madcap insanity that came to define the “Hangover” sequels.
The four are childhood friends reuniting for 70-year-old Douglas’s bachelor party before he gets hitched to a 30-year-old. De Niro, the grump that he is, hates Douglas’s guts after Douglas stood up his wife’s funeral. Kline and Freeman talk him into coming, and as soon as they get off the plane, the two are competing for the attention of a pretty lounge singer (Mary Steenburgen) closer to their age. Their adventures continue to bottle service at a night club and a blowout bachelor party bash after Freeman wins $100 grand at blackjack.
But to say the movie found much for the foursome to do with that money is a stretch. The four get to serve as judges for a bikini contest hosted by LMFAO’s Redfoo, but their involvement is limited to waving paper 10s in the air as girls parade in front of them. Occasionally Freeman gets to dance and Kline gets to flirt, but there does not seem to be an actual joke beyond, “look at this colorful suit,” “look at this stripper” or “look at this transvestite dressed as Madonna.”
The group is better suited to riffing on one another, but Dan Fogleman’s (“Crazy, Stupid Love”) script gives them awfully little to work with. Their stuttering over how to pronounce Fifty (Fitty) Cent’s name is about as far as they get. Literally the film’s biggest laugh is a cutaway shot to a rotating bed after Kline announces during his hangover that “everything’s spinning.”
Presumably you could do worse than “Last Vegas,” and so could this collection of Oscar winners, but to say this film isn’t horribly humiliating and disappointing is just tempting fate.
2 stars