Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

Stand Up Guys Blu-ray Movie Review

You'd stand up, too, if you had taken that much Viagra.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 18, 2013

One of the oddest sights on view during the press junket surround Stand Up Guys’ theatrical release was the guest appearance of Christopher Walken on The Daily Show, where the veteran actor confessed to being “chatty” with co-stars Al Pacino and Alan Arkin while they killed time in between takes. Chatty? Christopher Walken? It was enough to send host Jon Stewart into gales of falsetto laughter. If only some of that same sensibility had crept into the final film. Stand Up Guys is one of those films that would seem to have surefire possibilities based simply on casting alone, but which labors under an inchoate screenplay which lurches from improbability to improbability and equally unkempt direction from actor Fisher Stevens (Stevens also produced the Oscar winning documentary The Cove). This would be comedy plays a little like a high concept reboot of something that might be called The Godfather: The Next Generation, with three senior citizen goodfellas reuniting for a night of carnage (and carnality) as a subplot involving a forced hit also plays out. Al Pacino plays Valentine, known by his nickname Val, who is finally getting out of the joint after an astounding 28 years. He’s met at the prison gate by his old partner in crime (literally) Doc (Christopher Walken), a seemingly gentle soul who has opted out of the wiseguy lifestyle and instead spends his days watching “the cable television” and painting colorful landscapes of sunrises in his somewhat squalid apartment. When Doc takes Val back to this apartment to let Val freshen up, we’re let in on the fact that Doc is out to kill Val, albeit perhaps reluctantly. Later, we discover that Doc is being forced to kill Val by the local crime boss Claphands (Mark Margolis), who wants revenge for Val having (accidentally) killed Claphands’ son three decades ago, the crime that put Val away for the bulk of his middle age. Stand Up Guys plays out over the course of one (incredulously) eventful night, as Val seeks to make up for lost time while Doc has to consider competing loyalties as he decides how to handle his “assignment” to terminate Val with extreme prejudice.

What would seem to be more than adequate fodder for a gently wry character study takes its first disastrous left turn into Farrelly Brothers territory when Val insists the he and Doc should “party”, which means a visit to their long ago haunt of a local brothel. There they’re met by the daughter (Lucy Punch) of the madam the boys used to frequent back in the day, a young woman continuing the “family business”. She introduces Val to Oxana (Katheryn Winnick, seemingly consigned to playing Russian named women as evidenced by her Ivana in A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan IIl). Despite Oxana’s obvious charms, Val is unable to perform, which of course (of course) requires Doc to help Val break into a local pharmacy, where they stock up not just on Viagra but a handful of prescription meds Doc needs, all of which have “insane” co-pays attached to them. This might cheekily be termed Medicare Plan F (for felony). There are a number of inconsistencies in this scene. First of all, there’s absolutely no motivation given for Doc’s sudden change of heart. More importantly, the boys clip the wires of the alarm after it’s started ringing, which means the alert has been sent to the authorities already—but do police ever show up? Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

The Farrelly sensibility only gets more pronounced when Val downs a half bottle or so of Viagra, which obviously aids him in his return trip to the brothel, but which leads to one of those “four hour” side effects that may sound like fun but which in reality is rather painful (or so seems to be the case, anyway). Adding to Val’s predicament is the fact that he also snorted a potpourri of Doc’s various prescriptions, all of which has left him debilitated. This gives Doc a perfect opportunity to carry out Claphands’ dictum, but he waffles yet again and delivers Val to the emergency room where, in a kind of silly piece of stunt casting, the attending nurse is played by Juliana Margulies. While Val lies incapacitated in bed (replete with a completely unfunny sight gag which can be easily predicted), the two start to talk to her. It turns out that her character Nina happens to be the daughter of the boys’ old comrade Hirsch (Alan Arkin), whom Nina reveals is in pretty bad shape from emphysema at a local nursing home. Once Val’s predicament is solved courtesy of an agonizing blood draw, and after Val confesses to Doc that he already knows what Doc’s “assignment” is, the two head off to spring Hirsch from his version of imprisonment.

At this point in the film, any lingering relationship to anything approaching verisimilitude is completely thrown out the window. Hirsch leads the guys on a frantic chase in a stolen car, a sequence which is just jettisoned after a moment with an edit and forgotten as if nothing had ever happened. A completely silly chain of events follows, including more breaking and entering, not to mention more brothel activity. Things get even more ludicrous when mortality rears its ugly head and a ridiculously maudlin (and completely illogical) sequence follows.

The problem with Stand Up Guys is multifold. First, the film doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be: a quietly amusing character study of aging criminals coming to terms with their so-called “golden” years, or a raucous comedy that is one part The Godfather and one part The Hangover. Second, the film doesn’t seem to even trust its vaunted star power, reducing both Pacino and Walken to parodies of their former selves. Arkin is basically wasted in what amounts to a cameo. That leaves the heavy lifting to some of the supporting cast, and in this regard, Stand Up Guys does rather well. There’s a fairly predicable reveal toward the end of the film with regard to a cheery waitress played by Addison Timlin, a character Doc has interacted with for some time at his favorite diner, and to which he takes Val throughout the evening. That reveal may not be unexpected, but Timlin’s quietly confident performance elevates it to one of the few emotionally effective moments this otherwise weird hybrid has to offer.

Stand Up Guys Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Stand Up Guys is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Fine object detail is often at astounding levels—for better or worse, considering the creased faces on display—due to director Fisher Stevens' and Director of Photography Michael Grady's (Wonderland) penchant for close-ups throughout the film. Every crag and chin hair is easily noticeable on both Walken's and Pacino's visages. If Arkin gets off a little easier, it's partially due to his shorter screen time and the fact that he isn't given as many extreme close-ups. This Red Epic shot feature boasts really superior contrast, something that helps augment the nighttime scenes which comprise the bulk of the film. Shadow detail remains excellent throughout virtually all of this enterprise. Colors are natural looking and the image is clear and precise.

Stand Up Guys Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Stand Up Guys's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 has some surprising "oomph" courtesy of both the ubiquitous source cues (Stevens fills the film with old soul tunes) as well as some of the set pieces including the boisterous car chase. Surround activity is fairly consistent, though it really only becomes totally noticeable in the aforementioned instances. Otherwise, dialogue is anchored front and center, with only occasional foley effects dotting the surrounds. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is rather surprisingly wide.

Stand Up Guys Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Director Commentary. Stevens is incredibly articulate and does a good job describing what he wanted to achieve with this film. The question remains as to whether he actually realized that vision.


• The Lowdown on Making Stand Up Guys (1080p; 11:54) starts with various participants defining what a stand up guy is, and then features more interviews with the principal cast and crew, as well as behind the scenes footage.


• The Stand Up Songs of Jon Bon Jovi (1080p; 4:46) profiles Bon Jovi's contributions to the film. Is Fisher Stevens kidding when he asks if the interviewer had ever heard of Bon Jovi?


• American Muscle: The Stand Up Stunt Driving Scenes (1080p; 5:03) looks at one of the film's set pieces.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 2:35) play with timecode captions running along the bottom of the frame.

Stand Up Guys Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Stand Up Guys starts out promisingly enough, and had it hewed more closely to what it seems to be about in those opening moments—a character study of two aging criminals—the film could have been much more enjoyable, even if it never quite made it to blockbuster status. But once that Farrelly sensibility creeps in (not that there's anything wrong with that sensibility per se—it's just that it doesn't fit in this film), things careen more and more off the rails until there's little left but a massive train wreck on view. It's really sad that the first on screen pairing of Walken and Pacino should have produced such incredibly flat results. Fans of the actors may want to check this out as a rental, but I can't imagine this ever being mentioned among the best films either of these legendary actors have made over the course of their long and varied careers.