In my view, there are two ways to judge this film. The first is by looking it as a "stand-alone" movie. In that way it doesn't stand up that well. The plot is okay -- a buddy road trip on the way to a wedding...only for a change it's senior citizens. The situations are HUMOROUS, but not laugh-out-loud funny. The principal actors (Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau) do their jobs, while the supporting actors and actresses also do theirs. It's an amusing movie. And, if you don't know much about Lemmon and Matthau, that's all it will be to you.
The other way to judge this film is by looking at it as the closing act of a REAL buddy team of two actors who have shared a big part of their lives together, both professionally and personally. Then it doesn't matter if the film is as outwardly funny as it is charmingly humorous. You sit there thinking of their first film together -- the first "The Odd Couple" -- and you reminisce. Their first outing with "The Fortune Cookie", their most memorable romp in "The Odd Couple", the hilarity of "The Front Page", their renaissance in "Grumpy Old Men" and "Grumpier Old Men", and even their not so great "Out to Sea" and "Buddy Buddy". You admire them for what they meant individually and collectively to American cinema. And as you watch the scene of them parting at the airport, just maybe you think of Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn in that scene in "Guess Who's Coming Together" where they both know the end is almost upon them...not in film, but in real life. And you see the wistfulness of the parting scene between Lemmon and Matthau, probably realizing that this is the last film together.
So, how to judge this film? Factually or sentimentally? For me, more the latter, because it's a hearty farewell and thank you both for the laughs you have given me.
The other way to judge this film is by looking at it as the closing act of a REAL buddy team of two actors who have shared a big part of their lives together, both professionally and personally. Then it doesn't matter if the film is as outwardly funny as it is charmingly humorous. You sit there thinking of their first film together -- the first "The Odd Couple" -- and you reminisce. Their first outing with "The Fortune Cookie", their most memorable romp in "The Odd Couple", the hilarity of "The Front Page", their renaissance in "Grumpy Old Men" and "Grumpier Old Men", and even their not so great "Out to Sea" and "Buddy Buddy". You admire them for what they meant individually and collectively to American cinema. And as you watch the scene of them parting at the airport, just maybe you think of Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn in that scene in "Guess Who's Coming Together" where they both know the end is almost upon them...not in film, but in real life. And you see the wistfulness of the parting scene between Lemmon and Matthau, probably realizing that this is the last film together.
So, how to judge this film? Factually or sentimentally? For me, more the latter, because it's a hearty farewell and thank you both for the laughs you have given me.