Near the end of Stand Up
Guys, Christopher Walken turns to his partner in crime and shrugs, “Tomorrow
became today,” he says. It’s just three words, but it brilliantly sums up the
finite trajectory of our fragile lives. It is not the first nor the last time
this movie surprised me.
I went into Stand Up Guys
thinking it was a crime caper, and I found myself frustrated when it was not
delivering on those expectations. It was a lot of old guys talking. I couldn’t
find the hook. Then this wonderful film, with a subtle and oh-so-gentle nudge,
veered me into its melancholic and sentimental look at getting old and — no
spoiler alert needed — dying. My expectations were not met, and I’ve never been
happier.
The film, directed by occasional actor Fisher Stevens and written
by first-time screenwriter Noah Haidle, is an end-of-life allegory that is
surreal, often bordering on the absurd, though it starts fairly straight. Doc
is picking up Val on the day of his release from prison. We pick up little
pieces as we go: Val served a 28-year stretch. Doc was present for the crime
but never caught. The duo were rough-and-tumble crooks in their day. Now they’re
a bit creakier and a bit crankier as their career options have dried out,
though now they can eat off the senior menu at Denny’s. And look, AARP magazine in the mail!
Walken is the Doc character. He’s pathetic: hunched over, in an
outdated suit and with a wooly haircut that dangles over his ears. In one
scene, we can see Walken’s loafers as he sits at a table and they’re a size or
two too big. Is this a mistake on the costume department or is this the
character shrinking in his own shoes? Al Pacino plays Val, short for Valentine.
He’s quiet and subdued, but prone to those classic Scent of a Woman outbursts. He’s also hungry, sniffing out any
action that’s left on the street after all those years locked up. This also
explains why he chomps on a whole bottle of Viagra, or guzzles Doc’s cologne. Pacino
and Walken’s storied careers have sideswiped each other, but never overlapped. Because
they’ve lived tough lives in an array of tough films, they’re appearance in Stand Up Guys is appropriate. Their
characters could have been called Chris and Al and it would have just felt
right.
The movie is a series of mini-adventures that all take place
within one night. It resembles, in many facets, Martin Scorsese’s After Hours in the way that Doc and Val’s
late-night quest veers dangerously close to anarchic fantasy. They rob a
pharmacy, make repeated visits to a prostitute, steal a car, break into a suit
store, bust their retired getaway driver from a nursing home, attend a funeral,
rescue a kidnapped woman and dine at a late-night restaurant, where Val eats
something like half a cow in steaks. They’re living it up big because by the
next morning Doc must kill Val on the orders of a crime boss who holds a very
long grudge. Val doesn’t run because, well, Doc is all he has left.
The film has an exceptional understanding of life and what it
might all mean. “We live life so that others may witness that we existed,” Val
says at the funeral. He points to the ground, “There is one less person on this
earth who knows our names and who we are.” He goes on to tell us that we all
die two deaths: “One when we take our last breath and another when the last
person who remembers who are is gone. Then we’re nothing, my friend.” To hear
Pacino, himself 72 years old, say these prescient and poetic nuggets of truth
is even more devastating.
I liked what this movie meant, and the way it broadcast its
themes. I didn’t always like the acting, which felt forced and uninspired in
certain scenes. When Walken and Pacino are on, they’re on fire. When they’re
not, it’s noticeably dimmer on the screen as the two greats go through the
motions. They do have some inspired scenes, though, that are quite beautiful,
including the funeral with its flawless bits of dialogue. About halfway through
Alan Arkin turns up as their retired getaway driver. He’s very funny, but
mostly as an afterthought to Doc and Val. I think the character would have been
better suited to someone not as noticeable and famous as Arkin, who we latch
onto with fleeting results.
About midway through the writing of this review I turned to the
internet to see if any other writers had taken better notes during the funeral
scene. I was shocked to read so many negative reviews. Many of the reviewers
seemed to struggle with my first hang-up: Stand
Up Guys was not a very good crime caper. Duh, because it’s not a crime
movie. This is a movie about so much more. I could say it’s about getting old
and dying, but it’s more than that even.
It’s about being a witness to another person’s existence in this
great big universe of ours. It’s about our name and what it will mean to people
after we’ve passed. It’s about dying with dignity on our own terms. When a tree
falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a noise? Certainly
it does, and the other trees take note and mark its passing. Here is a story of
two very old trees who refuse to ignore the crashing of greatness.
