Stand Up Guys

Often, experienced actors have the same destiny as ex-presidents: nobody knows what to do with them. At some point of your career, no matter how many awards you have won, the only roles you get offered are the wise grandfather or the old villain, because unfortunately  commercial Hollywood has always been and will always be the kingdom of eternal youth.

Injustice here is capitalized, because the "mature" big actors, unlike presidents, improve with age! They are like musicians: age gives them many tools to make their interpretation better. That is why we have to rejoice for the opportunity to see Christopher Walken, Alan Arkin and Al Pacino (for a total of 14 nominations and 3 Oscars wons, one for each) in a film written and designed for their brilliance.

Pacino is Val, a former mafia hitman who has spent 28 years of his life in jail, complying with the standard of honor of not betraying any of his teammates involved in the death of the son of a gangster boss. Walken is his best friend, Doc, who, other than welcoming him after his release from prison, has the difficult mission to kill him before morning next day. Arkin (Hirsch) is their old partner, who had been the driver in charge of their flees thirty years early and who now spends his days in a nursing home. Val, who senses from the beginning that his friend has been hired to be his executioner and who understands that it is part of the job, proposes to spend the night together, doing the things that he has failed to do in the past quarter of century: go clubbing, try some forbidden pleasures, feel the thrill of speed and freedom.

The first half hour you have to hold on and wait because it is really slow. As if they needed more time to warm up after so many years, during those first thirty minutes Walken and Pacino look spiritless and maladjusted. But from the moment they take Arkin away from his nursing house, for old times' sake the film takes flight and allows the actors to show what they can do with their tools: with their gestures, their eyes, their voices and postures.

Although the script is nothing special and secondary characters disappear as freely as they arrive, the film has enough tact to give everyone their moment to shine: a dance number, an action scene, a few minutes of seduction.

At one point in the film, we realize that the plot or the fate of the character do not really matter (the film wisely chooses an open end). What matters is having this trio on the screen, with their accumulated tics and tricks, playing for us, their fans, a repertoire that we know by heart, a song for which we know and love the melody and the lyrics...and we enjoy it all because of this.

Director: Fisher Stevens

Writer: Noah Haidle

Stars: Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, Alan Arkin