Last Vegas (2013) Film Review by Gareth Rhodes

Last Vegas (2013) Directed by John Turteltaub. With Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Kevin Kline and Morgan Freeman.

It’s hard to argue against the effortless appeal of watching a film like Last Vegas. With four of Hollywood’s most prominent, senior actors jetting off for some stag-do Vegas hijinks, amid a safe and cosy underlying narrative of the positive power of friendship, you couldn’t pitch a more bankable box office success. True to form, Last Vegas cashed in an impressive $134m global take for its leisurely efforts. But is it any good? Not really.

If safe and cosy is your thing, then this might pass as a rainy Sunday morning time killer. So too, if predictable and trite floats your boat, then this will do nicely while you’re seeing to the ironing pile. This is a conventional film, made for conventional tastes. It isn’t interested in originality, in fact,quite the opposite. This is a film made by committee, a film that tries it’s best to repackage funny things from other films, hoping you won’t notice how tired and lazy it really is.

In fairness, the script throws up the occasional gag to raise a smile, but they are too few and far between to make any lasting impact. Plus, all they really serve to do, is to remind you how dull the experience has been, a bit like being nudged awake at a work seminar that you’ve nodded off during. Of the four guys, perhaps Kevin Kline shines the brightest, but only in flashes.

In the end, the even the ripe sentimentality itself was too old hat to make me wince. This is a film that aims to bludgeon you into submission with tired cliché, in the hope that you’ll just let it slide. Of course, the excellent cast and the post ‘Hangover’ appeal of tinseltown in Sin City renders a film like this critic proof. That doesn’t mean you won’t think it’s rubbish. 2/5

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