10:55am Friday 19th March 2010
By Damon Smith
IF at first you don’t succeed, fail miserably again.
Three years after the crass and homophobic comedy Wild Hogs, Robin Williams and John Travolta reunite with director Walt Becker for this chaotic road movie that proves parenting is a lot harder than it looks.
So, it would seem, is writing and directing a film that retains a single laugh, because Old Dogs is 88 tortuous minutes of limp gags missing easy targets.
Screenwriters David Diamond and David Weissman appear to have brainstormed zany set-ups then crudely stitched together each unlikely scenario with a linear narrative about an errant father bonding with the kids he never knew.
Thus the prescription medications belonging to Williams and Travolta’s businessmen are accidentally mixed up, leading to unfortunate side effects.
One suffers depth perception problems on a golf course and naturally begins to cut and slice tee shots into other players, the other is stricken with a permanent Joker-like grin at a funeral.
And when the characters stumble into a gorilla’s enclosure, one man becomes ensnared in the beast’s arms and has to sing Air Supply’s All Out of Love as a lullaby. By that point, we’re not so much all out of love as all out of patience.
See it at the Odeon
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