Review of Old Dogs (2009) by Gareth R — 06 Dec 2010

This isn't as bad as its reputation suggests. It's not very good, but my eyeballs still seem to be in tact. I had been told to expect bleeding.

It's the story of Ray Bradburn (Robin Williams), a late-middle-aged businessman who suddenly finds out he has two kids. He must look after them for two weeks, while his ex-wife (their drunken marriage was annulled after a day) serves a brief, socially-acceptable prison sentence. He worries that he's too old to be a Dad, or perhaps just too ill-equipped. His buddy Charlie (John Travolta) tries to help. The two of them juggle a big business deal while simultaneously trying to keep the kids happy. The kids are relatively low maintenance, it must be said, and are surprisingly accepting of their suddenly discovered almost-elderly Dad.

It's not a plot with a lot of conflict, which is probably why there are so many randomly interjected gags, like an awful bit where a girl (whose eyes are crossed, for absolutely no purpose besides an unbelievably cheap gag) smashes her hand in a car boot. This is followed by a burst of "Big Girls Don't Cry", which is the sort of comic decision a robot might have made. Ditto all those comic lines that end with doggy reaction shots. What was that about? I mean, they're not even jokes involving dogs.

Most of the humour is made up of "Geez, these guys are old!" jokes. Some of them work, like when Ray and Charlie suddenly speed up as a pair of female joggers pass them, and then slow down immediately, making apologies to Charlie's creaky pet dog. Other gags fare less well, like a sequence where Ray and Charlie get their meds mixed up, and Charlie suffers a facial twitch that makes him look like Jack Nicholson's Joker. It's more terrifying than funny.

Bernie Mac is quite good in his last performance. Matt Dillon is amusing as a troop leader. Seth Green... well, I'm not sure what he's doing here, and he doesn't seem to be certain either, but he's not dreadful. Jokes are made about how short he is, and well, yeah.

Old Dogs wobbles on for quite a long time. It's not an especially ghastly movie, and my family sure seemed to enjoy it, so I'm inclined to cut it a break. It's a bit of a mess, and some of the jokes are so broad you'll weep, but the rest of it is surprisingly inoffensive. No, really. It's just sort of... Feh.