Stand Up Guys Reviews

A cool, fresh, stylish, thrilling and very original movie. It's solid entertainment that is sure-fire fun from start to finish. A touching, funny, terrifically character driven and near-perfect film. A total blast of a comedy. A true movie pleasure that's nothing but a good-time with a great soundtrack, a wonderful script, solid direction and top-notch performances from it's three brilliant leads. It hits the jack-pot and delivers nothing but the goods. A superbly entertaining and wonderfully engaging movie. One of the best movies of 2013 by far. Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin are absolutely magnificent, they have great chemistry. Watching these guys together is nothing but sheer joy. Pacino is sensational, he still has the goods. Walken is terrific. Arkin is hilarious. These three give some of their best performances in years. I absolutely loved this movie. It packs a full-clip of heart, humor and fire-power. I haven't enjoyed myself this much at the movies in sometime, just goes to show the old-timers still got it and can still make us smile. It's old-school attitude with a sense of humor. Movies don't get anymore enjoyable than this. Director, Fisher Stevens crafts a wonderful film filled with great characters, exciting moments, even funnier moments and is just a flat-out gem.

In the first film of 2013 worse than "Movie 43", "Stand Up Guys", which contains a rather intriguing premise, is absolutely ruined by a perfect storm of tonally clunky direction, a script filled with some of the stupidest dialogue (I swear, some of the lines here are out-and-out plagiarized) and a wealth of surprisingly terrible acting from Al Pacino, Alan Arkin and Christopher Walken; not to mention, Lucy Punch (Bad Teacher) doing one of her worst accents yet.

The Plot: In yet another elderly "let's get the band back together" storyline, Pacino and Walken (who each play annoying versions of themselves) are a couple of aging hit-man types that go by the names Val and Doc; who also happen to be best friends. The movie begins on the afternoon that they reunite, after Val is released from a long stint in prison. But when Doc's promise to Val of a night out he won't soon forget, coincides with Val learning that a hit has been put on him, he quickly realizes that Doc's motives may not be all that they seem.

The entire tone of "Stand Up Guys" is in fact its own worst enemy. Beneath this dark storyline, there lies a slew of underdeveloped and rather generic slapstick sequences, mostly between Pacino and Walken, which seems more suitable to a "comedy" such as "Old Dogs" or "Wild Hogs". But far worse than having to hear a barrage of "I don't know how to work this new fangled computer" or countless prescription drug jokes, is having to sit through the multitude of humorless and disturbing erectile dysfunction bits, which seem to be the ONLY driving force of the first two meandering acts of this movie. OK, so if you don't see the problem with this, then let me spell it out for you. If you're going to make "Grumpy Old Men", make "Grumpy Old Men". And if you're going to make a crime drama concerning a hit-man that is ordered to kill his best friend, then make that movie. But by attempting to haphazardly mash these two types of very distinctive films together, all the filmmakers have done is created a movie where essentially the poor comedic humor cancels out all dramatic effect, and vice versa. In short, the tone is the reason (above all others) that we don't care about any of these characters.

Suffice to say, Pacino's erection sadly motivates the first half of the story, but after about 45 minutes there stems a very compelling initial diner sequence, which fooled even me into thinking that this movie was officially going to start getting good. Well that was short lived because soon afterwards Arkin's character makes his first appearance and "Stand Up Guys" ventures into non-sense land, crashing and burning in a wreckage of cringe inducing one-liners, unfathomably impractical situations and asinine revelations, resulting in something that is simply downright pathetic.

The Acting: So when I made mention that "Stand Up Guys" contains terrible performances, this in fact may be the understatement of the decade. Yes, it doesn't help that Pacino can hardly move anymore or that Arkin and Walken continue to play caricatures of themselves, or even how each one of these actors very particular voice cadences gets in the way of any sentimentality "Stand Up Guys" should have had, but at the end of the day, no real excuse can be made for performances which come across as though each actor is reading this script for the first time. Plus, it has come to my attention (through this film and "Seven Psychopaths") that anytime Christopher Walken isn't reciting his lines for ironic laughs, he is literally unbearable to watch or listen to.

Final Thought: And if all of that weren't bad enough, "Stand Up Guys" contains the worst ending of any film this year (so far). But on the other hand, maybe this movie was meant to be a satirical piece of filmmaking, promoting, through subtle yet methodical means, director Fisher Stevens' backhanded theory on how Pacino, Arkin and Walken should be ushered out of the business by any means necessary (short of shooting them all in the heads). If that's the case, then "Stand Up Guys" is still a bad movie.

Written by Markus Robinson, Edited by Nicole I. Ashland

Follow me on Twitter @moviesmarkus

Decent movie, if nothing really special. Expected mor from Pacino, but seemed to just be cruising through the film and looks well past his sell by date. Walken however seem to be getting better with age. His odd style works so much better now as an old man, this and the excellent Seven Psychopaths are some of his best work for a long time. More Walken, less Pacino seems to be the way forward.

Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin are all 3 Oscar winners, and three of the best actors ever. You would think that mob dramady with them would be good, but instead you just get a boring movie with a couple good moments. Val(Pacino) is released from prison after 28 years and reunites with his best friend Doc(Walken) and later Hirsch(Arkin). They were best friends and criminals and now one of them has been assigned a job by a mob boss that they don't want to do. They have til sunrise and then things come to a head. The story could have been better and other than Arkin, all the actors look like they don't care or want to be there. It's not very funny, and the dramatic moments don't care any weight because you just don't really have any reason to care for the characters. Fans of the three actors should give it a watch, but just know it's no where near their best, but not quite their worst.

Pretty underwhelming for such a star-studded cast. Christopher Walken's presence overshadows everyone else throughout the film, and he still has the delivery he's so well known for that makes you want to listen and laugh at what he says. Al Pacino spends too much time looking like he's on drugs (even though he's taking them in the film) and Alan Arkin has a very small minimal role without much to do. It's a slow pacing movie that has a good story buried beneath it, but the film feels like more of an excuse to get the big names in front of the screen than to put them to work.

Stand Up Guys benefitted from a strong, and I mean STRONG, cast. I'm not sure that without these guys helping this film along, that it would have been more than a mediocre little indie film. The ending is sort of brief, but it's a fitting end to this movie.

There were a number of funny parts, and a few laugh-out-loud moments in Stand Up Guys. Walken and Pacino had great chemistry. As hard as it seemed for the movie to move along with a solid story, there was character development. I'd give Walken and Pacino the credit because in the end I'd come to like these guys, especially Doc (Walken). There was a moment between him and a young woman that was touching.

Walken showed some depth, and stood out, in this run of the mill movie. He created a character I enjoyed right off the bat. Alan Arkin and Al Pacino don't do anything spectacular, but do add some character to the film. Pacino has some standard character he goes to in his older age, but it's a character I enjoy. Lucy Punch added a bit as well, having a small but recurring character in Stand Up Guys.

The movie itself was poorly put together. It felt almost like a bunch of clips put together more-so than building a story. Fisher Stevens is transitioning from an actor to a director and benefitted greatly from this cast in his first major release.

Stand Up Guys is good, and if you enjoy it, there is an older movie called The Crew (2000), starring Richard Dreyfuss and Burt Reynolds. It's OK, and about on par with Stand Up Guys. I wouldn't direct you to a theater to see Stand Up Guys, but it's worth a rental.

A final spree and some final jobs for aging crooks, with great Walken, Pacino, Arkin, Margulies, Punch.

Here's a back-n-the-day hit man type movie. A great ensemble cast yet a slow storyline. The BIG laughs make up for the slow storyline...literally laugh-out-loud. I didn't care for the ending. If you want to see a seasoned cast in a movie, then check this one out. In theatres today.

Al Pacino walks around for 90 minutes with a load in his pants, looks like shit and you can tell that they put Walkens makup on with a putty knife. It was painful to watch this movie. No laughs, only a few smiles and a plot you can see from the first 10 minutes. You can see all you need to of this movie from the trailers. If you or someone you know actually goes to an over priced theater to throw away money at this film.....kill them/yourself.

Hello ! its a satire movie you dopes!-- a great movie at that--did Paul Newman lower himself to do "Slap Shot"? get with it mob Great acting movie goes by fast.

Pacino isn't much of a draw for me.

This film works for an overall amount of 4 minutes, everything else is a very uncomfortable viewing, watching Al Pacino hit on women more than half his age, and a horrible plot just really makes you wonder how they got 3 legendary actors to sign on.

Three veterans who make it all work through chemistry of charm, even though they all have been typecasted and the formula doesnt provide any freshness. Hell I am ready to bet that Walken has worn the same wardrobe in at least three of his latest movies!

A hilarious and heartfelt addition to the mobster movie genre. Both Walken and Pacino give marvelous performances.

This movie wasnt what I thought it was going to be. But when you toss Walken and Pacino in a flick together, it's never going to be bad.