Last Vegas: Movie Review

“Last Vegas” can easily be referred to as a geriatric version of “The Hangover” based on the film’s trailers.  After the last two Hangover films, that last thing I wanted to do is see another movie about a group of guys getting crazy in the sin city.  Thankfully, “Last Vegas” is a much better movie than I expected.  Granted, I expected the worse, so anything would have been better than what I expected.  It is not so much the script that makes “Last Vegas” work as much as it is the chemistry between its’ seasoned stars.  De Niro, Douglas, Freeman, and Kline seem to all be having a great time. Well, actually it’s hard to tell with De Niro since his character is grumpy through the whole film.

After Billy (Douglas) pops the question to his much younger girlfriend during a friends funeral, he calls his life-long friends Archie (Freeman) and Sam (Kline) to share the news.   His two friends decide to throw Billy a bachelor party in Las Vegas.  The biggest hurdle they face is getting Paddy (De Niro) to join them.  Paddy is mad at Billy for not attending his late wife’s funeral several months prior.  It doesn’t take a whole lot of convincing to get Paddy to come, they just don’t tell him the reason they are going to Vegas.

Once the whole gang is together, everything is pretty much paint by numbers. We get hit with every single  geriatric joke you can possibly think of and there are no surprises here.  The screenplay by Dan Fogelman is average at best, but it does have its’ heart in the right place.  Freeman is very funny here, but Kline’s comedic talents seem to be wasted here. 

“Last Vegas” will entertain the over sixty crowd, judging by the row of seniors sitting in front of me at the screening.  They were laughing non-stop.  I laughed quite a bit myself as well.  If you are hard up for a good comedy, “Last Vegas” might be worth the trip.

By: Marc Ferman