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[De Niro and Crystal] would seem to be perfectly cast as this oddest of odd couples, but something has gone wrong with the comic chemistry.
The comedy is heavy and the use of the stars lazy and cliched...
What De Niro ends up doing is simply burlesquing himself, much as he would do if he were guest-hosting Saturday Night Live.
What we learn -- yet again -- is that potentially terrific comedies are often whacked by filmmakers who feel the need to spread a little therapy themselves.
Moments and lines are so perfect that they linger in the mind.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
It's a treat to watch Robert De Niro -- the goodfella supreme -- tweak every gangster role he's ever played.
| Original Score: 4.5/5
Funny partly because De Niro and Crystal do what we expect them to do, and partly because they don't.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
De Niro and Crystal are a crackerjack pairing, and their interplay is loony enough to make you forgive the movie being stuck in neutral most of the time.
Director Harold Ramis keeps the gangsters real and funny at the same time.
Ramis has made a fleet, unself-conscious, eminently enjoyable picture, where one-liners carom merrily like stray bullets, and where there's casual ease, like the drape of a sharpster's trousers, in the rapport between its two stars.
It ends up a one-joke picture, with feeble variations.
De Niro's precise comic timing and colorful line readings constitute pic's greatest pleasure!
Billy Crystal comes into his own with a monologue that will just make you howl.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
