Old Guy

There were three reasons to be optimistic about Old Guy, the latest from director Simon West. West used to make big budget, memorably bad actioners (Con Air), then middle budget middling actioners (The Mechanic, The Expendables 2), and now low budget actioners that have to find a way to capture attention. Hence, the three reasons for optimism.

Number one, two-time Oscar winner and all around magnetic onscreen mischief maker Christoph Waltz plays the lead. He’s Danny Dolinski, an aging hitman with a penchant for drink, drugs and threesomes (and hideously patterned short sleeve button downs).

Dolinski’s recovering from hand surgery—his trigger hand—which is slowing him down. Thus, he’s been tasked with training a new man, Wihlborg (Cooper Hoffman). Reason number 2. The actor’s handful of onscreen performances—particularly, his remarkable lead turn in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2021 Licorice Pizza—mark him as an actor I’m anxious to see in anything.

And reason 3, Lucy Liu, whose recent work finds edges and scars that give characters intriguing dimension. She’s particularly wonderful onscreen right now in Steven Soderbergh’s inverted ghost story Presence.

What’s most fun about the casting is that all three talents are playing entirely against type. And though not one of them is entirely convincing as their own particular fringe-of-society misfit, each is deeply charming.

West’s direction is frantic enough to do service to both the action and comedy Old Guy is trying to convey. Greg Johnson’s script is not helping. The dialog is not especially funny and worse still, the plot itself falls entirely apart under the lest scrutiny. But the veteran popcorn-and-car-chase director injects a bit of tension and giddy humor with image juxtaposition and punchy editing.

And there’s just a silliness in the cast that’s engaging. Liu’s character is an absolute afterthought, but the performance compels interest nonetheless. Hoffman’s been handed less a character than a handful of tics in dark nail polish, but he gives the guy a heartbeat and you find yourself rooting for him.

And Waltz, so charmingly miscast, characteristically finds insignificant moments to turn into cinematic highlights. You’ll forget Old Guy the minute those catchy looking credits stop rolling, but sometimes a brain needs to turn off and wallow in three solid performers having fun and making the most of a bad situation.