Last Vegas Movie Blurb by Shale November 15, 2013 This was the other movie opening I missed last week while on my cruise, so I saw it today. The aggregate reviews on Rottentomatoes give this movie only 43% fresh, explaining that "The cast of Last Vegas keep things amiably watchable, but the film is mostly a mellower Hangover retread for the older set." Well I never saw any of the Hangover movies and felt they would not appeal to me but this one somehow did. Maybe the fact that I am the age of the "older set" in this movie is why I am with the 71% of audiences who enjoyed it. In fact I decided to see it after reading the interviews of all the stars in the November issue of AARP Magazine. The story starts in Brooklyn in the '50s with four best friends, the Flatbush Four as they call themselves getting into the usual inner city mischief and having crushes on a girl. Jump to the present and Billy (Michael Douglas - 69) has impulsively proposed to his live-in girlfriend, who is in her 30s. (Now who would believe a guy that age would ever get a knock-out looking girl in her 30s to fall for him?) So he tells his friends, Sam (Kevin Kline - 65) and Archie (Morgan Freeman - 76). The wedding is going to be in Las Vegas and his lifelong friends are planning to go out and have a bachelor party for him. Here is where we find there has been a rift between Billy and Paddy (Robert De Niro - 70) but the other two friends convince him to go to Vegas with them. The guys meet Diana (Mary Steenburgen - 60) a singer in one of the casinos who has a way of cutting thru the bull that makes her an instant success with them. In fact you can see a spark happening in the grumpy old man Paddy, and to complicate things Billy the intended groom is also attracted to Diana. That's the set up and these fine, experienced actors all play it out well. I could relate to many of the dilemmas these characters were in - things that come to you with age such as the physical failings of the body while still wanting to see yourself as the vital person of your youth. This was brot home by Michael Douglas' character, who was single and loved to play with younger women. Michael and I are the same age and I was a bit envious that he could hook up with Catherine Zeta Jones IRL, a woman young enuf at 44 to be his daughter. So maybe being 69 makes this movie more interesting and enjoyable.
