Most people should be able to find better things to do than
spend two hours hearing 80-year-old hemorrhoid sufferers yell "Eat
my shorts!" at each other. That's pretty much the maturity level of
this movie. After all, what could you expect Walter Matthau to
follow DENNIS THE MENACE with? The sad part is, though, I
actually found a lot of this amusing.
GRUMPY OLD MEN consists of Walter and Jack Lemmon
hurling childish insults at each other and pulling equally childish
pranks. Over the course of your two lucky hours watching this
movie (which hopefully you didn't pay $7.50 to see), you'll see
Matthau sink Lemmon's icehouse, Lemmon put a fish in Matthau's
car, Matthau arrange for a giant mound of snow to fall on Lemmon's
head, Lemmon cancel Matthau's social security, etc. This movie
may make the nation's opinion of the elderly fall even lower than
the Medic Alert commercial ("I've fallen... and I can't get up!")
did.
Then, midway through the movie, the plot shifts as
Lemmon and Matthau make a bet on which one can bed Ann
Margret first. That's got to be more than any sane individual can
take. But if you stick around for the closing credits, you'll hear a
90-year-old Burgess Meredith's colorful euphimisms for sex. Oh,
great. Nothing seems more funny to me than the "horny old man"
stereotype saying things like, "Looks like he's about to take the
skin boat to tuna town." Maybe euthanasia's not as cruel as we
thought...
Copyright © 1996 Andrew Hicks
out of 4
