Review of The Sunshine Boys (1975) by Devon B — 20 May 2010

If you've ever had a strong desire to hang out with hard-of-hearing, incontinent and embittered elderly at a nursing home for two hours, then I strongly suggest you watch this movie first, as it will undoubtably cure you of this. Walter Matthau yells, hollers and bellows his dialogue in a manner that must've left him exhausted after each day of filming, or at least with a bad case of laryngitis. He plays a character so grating, it borders on torture to watch. In fact, this might be a good film subject Al-qaeda suspects to (with the volume turned up, for full bellowing effect). While I don't have any actual quotes from the movie, I think I can give a basic idea of the humor found in it:

Old Man: "Where's the bathroom?".

Woman: "Sir, this is a pay phone".

Old Man: "What?".

Woman: "I said, 'Sir, this is a pay phone".

Old Man: "So? Why are you telling me this for?".

Woman: "You asked where the bathroom is".

Old Man: "You think I don't know this? What is this?".

Woman: "Would you please leave?".

Old Man: "Huh?? What?? Bathroom??? Phone Booth???".

(10 minutes later).

Old man: "So what, you gonna let me use the bathroom now?".

...annd scene.

Walter Matthau plays an old vaudeville entertainer who's fallen on hard times, and as the movie opens, he's going out on commercial auditions. But, rather than go to the building where auditions are being held, he goes to an auto garage and insists on doing the audition for the mechanic, who is about as amused by this as I was. If Walter Matthau is playing an older character (than he was at the time), then George Burns is somehow playing a YOUNGER character (than he was at the time), and yet, he still seems more together than what Matthau is supposed to be. You see, the two of them were the great vaudeville comedy team "Lewis and Clark", and they've been at each other's throats for years since their retirement. When Clark's nephew (Richard Benjamin) gets them booked on a tv retrospective, they have to somehow learn to work together again. But after being subjected to Matthau's "louder equals funnier" performance for the entire first half of the movie, I had no interest in how the rest of the plot would play out. Neil Simon's screenplay is awkward, obvious, elementary and plodding. This movie actually plays better as a drama than a comedy. I don't find it cute when old people act like infants and I don't enjoy listening to people yelling at one another. My question is, are there people who do enjoy this?