Old Dogs (2009)

Starring: Robin Williams, John Travolta, Seth Green, Kelly Preston, Rita Wilson Lori Loughlin, Bernie Mac, Matt Dillon, Justin Long, Dax Shepard, Luis Guzmán, Ann-Margret, Amy Sedaris, and Paulo Costanzo
Grade: D-

At one point, John Travolta’s character mentions that the kids haven’t seen Friday the 13th or Friday the 13 Part 2. Does he know there was like ten sequels?

Summary

Aging best friends Dan Rayburn (Williams) and Charlie Reed (Travolta) are in sports marketing, and they have a major pitch meeting that could be huge for their careers. Usually, Dan leads the presentation, but the talkative Charlie is the man that loosens the crowd a bit with some jokes and anecdotes. He loves telling the story about Dan immediately after his divorce, but Dan pleads with him not to tell it when they jog together in the morning because it embarrasses him. Though Charlie agrees not to, he ends up telling the Japanese businessmen anyway at the pitch meeting, with Amanda (Loughlin) acting as the translator and their younger associate Craig (Green) being present. Here’s the embarrassing story:

Seven years ago, Dan’s divorce went through officially and his ex-wife basically took everything. He was going through a bit of depression so Charlie, being the good friend he is, took Dan to Miami. They get drunk, and Charlie takes Dan to get a tattoo that says, “Free Man”. Unfortunately, the tattoo artist (Residente) didn’t understand English too well and wrote “Fremont” instead, permanently inking Dan’s chest with these massive letters. Later that night, the two run into two middle-aged single women, Vicki (Preston) and cross-eyed hand model Jenna (Wilson). Vicki takes a liking to Dan, and they drunkenly get married that night, though they got it annulled the next day once they realize what happened.

Anyway, after Charlie is done with the story, the Japanese businessmen are laughing their asses off and chanting “Fremont” just like the people of Miami did to Dan so many years back during that drunken night. Following this, Dan nails the presentation, and the deal is very close to going through, potentially giving Dan and Charlie their biggest deal yet. Dan, Charlie, and Craig go out to celebrate, but Dan reminds them they have to win over the main guy at the golf course and make another presentation to their board of directors. Later, Dan gets a message from Vicki. She’s in town, and she wants to meet up. Apparently, the last time they had any sort of interaction (not counting the annulment) was last Christmas when Dan typed up a huge letter for her when he was feeling lonely in his new condo. Charlie convinces him to get a spray tan first, but there’s a mishap with the machine and he’s not let out in time because Charlie was flirting with the receptionist and distracted her. Dan comes out looking like Kramer did in that episode of Seinfeld when he fell asleep in the tanning bed. Regardless, Dan meets Vicki, and they go out for lunch. He tries to convince her they should start dating, but Vicki isn’t even thinking of this. She interrupts him to tell him she’s going to jail tomorrow.

It’s for trespassing because some chemical company wanted to build a plant that would’ve drained into a stream near her house, so she chained herself to a bulldozer and burned the blueprints for the plant. It was for her kids since they play near the stream. For the two weeks she’ll be in jail, her kids will stay with Jenna, and she has told them that the reason for her absence is because she’s going to a spa.

Then, she drops the bomb on Dan: they’re his kids.

After the kids run up to greet them, along with Jenna, they leave, and Vicki tells him how she was thrown off about his letter so many months ago. Once she realized her son hasn’t even been to a men’s bathroom because she usually takes him with her, she realized her kids needed to see their father. After helping Dan get rid of his horrible fake tan, the two take their kids to a carnival of sorts, and Dan gets the honor of taking his son to the men’s bathroom for the first time. Later, they go back to the house to hear that Jenna, who is still hand modeling, got the part she wanted. Unfortunately, following her helping Dan by taking stuff out of the trunk, he accidentally closes the trunk on her hands and knocks her out by hitting the trunk button, with it smacking her face. After Dan and Vicki meet her in the hospital, Vicki flips because she has no one else to watch the kids, so Dan volunteers to calm her nerves, and she accepts. That night, Charlie flips out on Dan when they meet up for dinner because this deal that they’ve been working on is highly important to both of their careers. Having to take care of these kids couldn’t come at a worse time. Charlie tries to explain how Dan is going to pull this off but Dan guilt trips him, reminding Charlie how this is technically all his fault for that Miami trip so many years back.

Now, these two old bachelors will have to work together on being dads for the first time ever. At the same time, they have to keep their work on track because there is no room for error.

My Thoughts:

Trying to recapture the energy and old man humor that made Wild Hogs a box office hit, Old Dogs tries the same formula and fails miserably. The only thing this movie did for me was made me think Robin Williams should’ve been in Wild Hogs instead of William H. Macy. This way, that movie got better while this one never existed.

Okay, maybe that was a bit harsh. Truthfully, I didn’t totally hate Old Dogs, despite the rating I gave it. Unfortunately, it’s more because I felt bad for the people involved rather than me enjoying the experience. I tried really hard to like it and there are some positives to it. John Travolta and Robin Williams try their ass off to make this light-hearted movie work too. This is where I give them credit because despite how unfunny or uninteresting everything is, the two were all-in from start to finish. Sadly, this screenplay was absolute dogshit. If they didn’t have so many stars agreeing to be in it (which still baffles me on how many got involved), there’s a good chance this script never would’ve been greenlit with the draft that we ended up with. Now, there are some humorous bits that land stemming from Charlie, the scene where an Indian man and Spanish woman mistake Dan for a foreigner because of his fake tan, and the cutaway of Craig’s karaoke stint that almost fucks up the business deal. However, besides this, the window of actually amusing things, or remotely anything entertaining is noticeably small. Then, you get stuff like the gorilla sequence. This could have been funny, but when the film came out, the trailer played the scene over and over again, lessening the impact of it when you finally get to see it in full context.

If you remember when this movie came out in 2009, I know you will agree with me here. I saw that trailer everywhere and that scene has been burnt in my brain ever since.

Justin Long stole the show in the few scenes he was in. He was totally committed to the nutjob boy scout leader mistaking Charlie for someone that stole his girlfriend. The man was unhinged. I wish there were more scenes somehow involving him because he was great. Dax Shepard also had a notably funny small role. These two alone helped Old Dogs stave off the “F” grade I was close to giving. Besides these two, there wasn’t much else that worked. This was pretty much it, which is disappointing considering all the big names in the film. One crucial bit that should’ve been funnier was when they try to play up the “we’re old” shtick by having Dan and Charlie talk about how many pills they have to take and the side effects, and it leads to the kids bumping into the medicine cabinet and all the pills falling out. This forces them to put the pills back in the wrong boxes, causing Dan and Charlie to take each other’s pills without knowing and they have these horrible, unexpected side effects that happen at the worst time possible the next day in an elongated sequence in the movie. None of it was as funny as the writers clearly thought it was because they dragged the scene excruciatingly longer than it needed to be. This continues with a later scene where one of the side effects of Charlie’s pills is temporary facial paralysis, making Travolta have this grotesque facial expression reminiscent of a Jack Nicholson-like Joker smile. Saying it was strange looking would be a way to put it lightly. It wasn’t funny either, just strange. Stupid comedy like this tended to be the type of humor the film strives for more often than not, but 95% of the time, it doesn’t work.

Usually, I like stupid humor, but it’s completely flat in Old Dogs.

Well, there’s that and the scene where Dan takes his son to the bathroom stall and waits inside with him as the kid takes a shit. During it, the kid decides to ask where babies come from. It doesn’t get much more awkward than that.

So, there you have it. The “humor” (if you can call it that) comes off as strange and awkward for two of the biggest jokes of the movie. This should tell you a lot.

Along with this, physical comedy is a big part of the movie too. Unfortunately, an aging Travolta and Williams aren’t the guys to pull it off, especially with this weak of material. Robin might have been able to do it if he was younger but even then, it would’ve gone nowhere. This script gives him nothing. I like physical comedy too. What happened here just wasn’t funny or didn’t make sense. For instance, what was up with that scene involving the famous puppeteer Jimmy Lunchbox (Mac)? At one point, since Dan is having trouble interacting with his kids, Charlie brings him to Jimmy because Jimmy has created this world-class human puppeteering equipment where Charlie can control Dan by them both wearing this special suit. Are you hearing this? This whole part was outrageous! How does a puppeteer possess this spectacular technological achievement that no one has ever seen/created before? Why is he willing to help Charlie out with this million-dollar equipment unknown to the rest of the world? Is it just because they are friends? That seems kind of reckless. Is Jimmy also an inventor, along with owning and hosting a children’s stage show? There are so many questions we have for this ridiculously stupid scene and none of it is ever explained. On top of that, it’s not funny, and it’s never talked about again once the scene is over with. In addition, why make Jenna cross-eyed? This seemed like an Adam Sandler-like decision that offered no significance to the story whatsoever. It was just a distracting trait from an unimportant and unfunny character.

Old Dogs also tries to include some bits revolving around my least favorite form of comedy subgenre in which children are absolute maniacs that destroy everything and cause the adults physical pain. This isn’t the whole movie (THANK GOD), but it does tiptoe the line of being “too much” at times. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t do a good job at this either because we never learn enough about the kids, and they’re actually pretty likable. Doing this subgenre wrong is a weird thing to fail at, but this movie manages to pull off the unthinkable. Hell, even the theme song for the movie, “You’ve Been a Friend to Me”, is a blatant rip-off of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” in style and sound. Come on Disney! Do better. This whole production was a failure in every sense of the word! It couldn’t be more obvious that this was a “paycheck” movie. These two were major stars, though at the time, neither had much going on. In this case, I could see why they agreed to do it. The money had to have been good though. They must’ve gotten paid paid. This is the only justifiable reason as to why Robin Williams and John Travolta said “Yes” to this horrid movie after reading its script.

Assuming they can read, there’s no way they thought this was going to do major business at the box office. It had to have been a money decision plain and simple.

With this amount of star talent, you have to give me something better than Old Dogs. It doesn’t work as a family comedy because it’s too focused on the old guys, it’s not funny enough for older people, it’s predictable, the slapstick sucks, its message was obvious from the beginning, and it pales in comparison to the much better movie it’s trying to copy in Wild Hogs. Despite liking some stuff from the film, it earned its rating because of how bad it still managed to be with all the talent involved. It just screams laziness. Thankfully, mainstream audiences didn’t fall for the smoke and mirrors. Old Dogs tried to coast by on its star power, a tactic you can get away with sometimes. Sadly, the entirety of the production was so piss-poor that the actors didn’t have a shot in hell to make this succeed, and everyone noticed it.