"LAST VEGAS" (2013) Review

"LAST VEGAS" (2013) Review

When I first saw the trailer for "LAST VEGAS", my first impression was that it was some kind of senior version of "THE HANGOVER" or one of those comedy road trip movies featuring four friends. It did not strike me as an original movie, but it looked entertaining and I decided to go see it anyway. 

Directed by Jon Turteltaub and written by Dan Fogelman, "LAST VEGAS" is a story about a quartet of long time friends in their late sixties who gather in Las Vegas to attend a wedding. While giving an eulogy at the funeral of a friend, Billy spontaneously proposes marriage to his 32 year-old girlfriend. Several weeks later, he announces his engagement to at least two of his friends - Archie and Sam. Archie, who feels like a prisoner of his son's following a mild stroke, sneaks away. Sam, who has become slightly embittered over his Florida retirement, is encouraged by his wife to go on the trip and even consider one night of adultery to get his mojo back. Both Archie and Sam meet in their old Brooklyn neighborhood to convince the last member of the old quartet - Paddy - to join them on the trip to Vegas. There is a difficult. Paddy is angry over Billy's failure to attend his wife's funeral, but Archie manages to convince him to accompany them.

When the four friends meet in Vegas, they try to check into an old hotel on Fremont Street. Unfortunately, the hotel has been transformed into an unsuccessful nightclub, where they meet a sexy, aging singer named Diana. Both Paddy and Billy, who is awaiting his young fiancée, become attracted to her. Thanks to Archie's successful spell at a hotel casino on the Strip, the four friends are comped by the hotel to stay in one of their suites. While Archie and Sam set out to enjoy themselves, Billy and Paddy deal with their conflict over the latter's late wife and Diana.

I might as well be frank. "LAST VEGAS" is not exactly a comedy classic. Nor does it have an original script. A lot of the movie is spent with the four seniors musing over aging and trying to pretend that they can still party hard. Not only would I never consider "LAST VEGAS" as one of the best films for any of the four leads, I would never consider it one of their best works during the later stages of their career. But I knew that coming in. One look at the movie's trailer pretty much told me what kind of movie this would be.

But you know what? Despite the lack of originality and hardcore partying (PG-rated), "LAST VEGAS" turned out to be a very entertaining film. Hell, it was a lot of fun to watch. Thanks to Fogelman's script, the movie was filled with some sharp wit and funny moments. Among the latter was Archie's "difficult" escape from his New Jersey home, the four friends acting as judges at a swimsuit contest around the hotel's swimming pool, Billy and Diana's ride on what I believe was the Stratosphere. I could be wrong about the latter. Fogelman's script was slightly elevated by a few scenes of pathos involving Billy and Paddy's conflict over the latter's wife, thanks to the actors involved.

Speaking of the actors, it is quite apparent that this movie owed a lot to the five leads. Mind you, Fogelman wrote an entertaining, yet unoriginal script. And Jon Turteltaub infused a great deal of energy into his direction. A great deal. The movie also benefited from solid performances from supporting players like Romany Malco, Jerry Ferrara, Weronika Rosati, Joanna Gleason and Michael Ealy. But one might as well face it. Without the four male leads and the sole female lead, I doubt that I would have ever found this movie amusing, let alone funny. Both Turteltaub and Fogelman owed a great deal to Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline and Mary Steenburgen. Not only did the four men proved to have strong chemistry with each other, Steenburgen added a good deal of her own chemistry with the team. She especially managed to click with Douglas and De Niro.

As I had earlier stated, "LAST VEGAS" is not a comedy classic. Nor did I find it particularly original. I would never list it as one of the best movies of 2013. But I cannot deny that I found it both witty and funny, thanks to Dan Fogelman's script. Jon Turteltaub's direction injected a great deal of energy into the story. And the movie overall really benefited from a strong cast lead by Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline and Mary Steenburgen. "LAST VEGAS" may not have been great, but I found it very entertaining.