Old Guy, 2024.
Directed by Simon West.
Starring Christoph Waltz, Cooper Hoffman, Lucy Liu, Desmond Eastwood, and Ann Akinjirin.
SYNOPSIS:
Follows a contract killer facing the end of his career who is thrilled when The Company pulls him back into the field training Gen Z newcomer: Wihlborg, a prodigy assassin with an attitude.
Christoph Waltz is a treasure of an actor, with his smooth voice, charm with a hint of danger, and one-of-a-kind grin. Unfortunately, his career following his Best Supporting Actor Oscar wins for Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012) has been hit-and-miss at best. The latest disappointment to waste his talents is Old Guy, a crime comedy as generic as its title.
Old Guy finds Waltz playing Danny Dolinski, an aging assassin dealing with arthritis in his shooting hand. After completing easy jobs, Dolinski likes to spend his time in dance clubs at night and drinking booze in the morning. His successful career and hedonistic activities hit a speedbump when his handler, Opal (Ann Akinjirin), tells him that he must train his replacement.
The new blood is Wihlborg (Cooper Hoffman), a hitman with skill but a tendency to kill bystanders. He and Dolinski are assigned to take out a few members of the Irish mob. They butt heads as they have decidedly different methods for executing missions. Along for the ride is Anata (Lucy Liu), an associate and friend of Dolinski who may or may not have feelings for him.
Greg Johnson’s screenplay for Old Guy has a routine setup similar to The Mechanic (1972) and dozens of other hitman flicks. The dialogue falls back on post-Tarantino banter while the plot becomes less interesting and more convoluted as it moves along. Anata and Danny even have the oldest conversation in these types of movies, where two professionals suddenly dream of moving on to a “regular life.” But maybe they’re not professionals as they often give away their names and leave behind DNA at the scenes of crimes.
Simon West, the director of the dumb-but-fun Con Air (1997), continues his recent run of duds with Old Guy. He delivers some style in bringing Johnson’s script to the screen, but his touch is surprisingly relaxed here. For being a director known for staging cartoonish actioners, West injects Old Guy with little urgency. The film at least looks very good though, with cool blues and warm oranges in the lighting and a colorful opening credits sequence in the Saul Bass mode.
Waltz and Hoffman do what they can to elevate the film and share an easy chemistry. A handful of the scenes they have together are entertaining, including a hit on a golf course that goes amusingly wrong. Liu, however, is given a thankless role and has little to do. These three actors deserve better material to bite into together.
Old Guy is never terrible, but it’s ultimately bland and forgettable. Waltz is enjoyably loose and the film has its moments. The Oscar winner should be leading all-star dramas though, not being the saving grace of boilerplate crime comedies.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Daniel Rester is a freelance film critic and a member of the Hollywood Creative Alliance. He holds a bachelor’s degree with a double major in Film/TV and Emerging Media and Digital Arts.
