Stand Up Guys feels like a first draft. Not a terrible first draft, but certainly not a finished product. First off, you have Christopher Walken and Al Pacino reading lines like they’re still at the studio table. Sure, we expect this of Walken, with his randomized emphasis and mysterious pauses, but it looks like you got Al doing it, too. Then there are three separate trips to a brothel, each one worse than the last. The culmination is 147-year-old Alan Arkin satisfying two chicks -two professional providers that is- to the point where, get this, they both thank him afterwards. Even for fantasy, this is cheap … and equally as realistic as madam Lucy Punch. And then there are four separate trips to a diner, two with gigundo meals, all within a span of twelve hours. Geez, Al, you plow through more calories than Kobayashi. Yes, this screenplay feels unfinished.
Am I wrong here? Val (Pacino) just got out of a 28-years stint in prison. Pal Doc (Walken) is there to pick him up, but mob boss Claphands (Mark Margolis) — seriously, “Claphands?” — 
has ordered Doc to kill Val by the following morning. Wait a minute! Before we get into a story, we have to talk about Val’s schlong. A lot. From the whorehouse to the drugstore to pool hall back to whorehouse to bar to hospital, it’s all about Val’s wang issues. Yes, the adventures of Old Man Penis are fascinating! I did say “unfinished,” right?
Get ready to be confused, grandparents, because Julianna Margulies appears as the hospital nurse. Yes, dad, it’s the same role she played on E.R., but we’re not watching E.R. To further obfuscate matters, she plays Alan Arkin’s daughter. That’s right, in a film with a young-ish woman named Margulies playing a daughter and a septuagenarian named Margolis complaining about a son, these two aren’t related. Could no one else play either of these roles? Because now even I’m confused.
So Doc has to kill his best buddy and the two decide to have one marvelous last night together before the deed . It’s kind of like Before Sunrise except for the sexual chemistry — now that would have made an interesting film — just substitute romantic poetry along the Danube with snorting perscription hypertension medication. And of the Oscar-laden old men on screen participating in such foolishness, the person I liked best was 22-years-young diner waitress Alex (Addison Timlin). Kinda wish the film had been about her.
Ancient Al gets out of the joint
He’s hardly a Saint to anoint
His advancement of years
Has curdled his fears
“You’re never too old,” that’s the point
Rated R, 95 Minutes
D: Fisher Stevens
W: Noah Haidle
Genre: Whipper-snapperin’
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Nursing home gangstas
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Ageists
