"Last Vegas" is about as clever as the pun of its title. It's a geriatric riff on "The Hangover" that features four Oscar-winning actors playing to type. Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline play old neighborhood buddies from New York City who get together for a stag party in Vegas for the last bachelor amongst them, who's getting married to a woman 40 years younger. Indeed, much of the film seems intent on proving that even pushing 70, you can still be a player; director Jon Turteltaub surrounds his geezers with so many damsels that you'd be hard-pressed to find an extra strolling through any scene who isn't a total babe in a mini dress.
Screenwriter Dan Fogelman was sharper with 2011's "Crazy, Stupid, Love," but gets a bit more generic here; like so much American cinema these days, the plot in "Last Vegas" revolves around an issue from the characters' childhood that has to be resolved before the film can have "closure." But we may well wonder what planet a screenwriter lives on when he writes a scene that involves a wife giving her husband of 25 years a condom, a Viagra pill, and a note saying "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." Yeah, right.
| Rating | |
|---|---|
| Director | Jon Turteltaub |
| Language | English |
| Opens | Opens May 24, 2014 |
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