REVIEW OF' LAST VEGAS' WITH MICHAEL DOUGLAS & ROBERT DENIRO

An old wild bunch of LAST VEGAS Year: 2013

With Robert DeNiro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline in the same movie... as old friends taking a trip to Las Vegas... we either needed a longer backstory/flashback of when they were giddy Brooklyn kids, or no flashback at all (preferred)... Either way it doesn’t matter: LAST VEGAS is a personality driven film…

Douglas, as Billy, is the confident, womanizing leader while polar opposite DeNiro’s Paddy is the most brooding, and keeps the only dramatic subplot intact… Morgan Freeman as Archie is likable, wise and charming: as usual for Freeman... And Sam, played by Kevin Kline – given free reign to cheat on his progressive wife – is doing his sarcastic “Steve Martin light” shtick, providing bouts of comic relief to a comedy film and, as the only non "legend" herein, seems the most busy as the guys have a bachelor party weekend for Douglas's Billy, geared to marry a spry thirty-one year old, and he’s not as aware of his advanced age as if everyone else… Especially DeNiro's Paddy, who had married the girl Billy loved and is still sore Billy, a confident public speaker along with being extremely wealthy, didn’t make her funeral: to host it. This is as tense as things get… DeNiro holds onto a determined, temperamental stubbornness not without likable pathos – but, within the story, his incessant, grouchy whining can’t ruin the endless party…

RATES: ***

The best parts are cliché yet entertaining enough to pass the time, as the boys become hosts at an indoor bikini contest, then VIP’s in a backroom nightclub, which isn't all fun and games: there’s actually a love story, kind of: Mary Steenburgen’s lounge singing Diana (who has aged quite well) provides sporadic heartfelt detours which don't slow down the breezy pace that, although soaked in a formulaic mainstream glow, makes for a genuinely enjoyable getaway: If aspiring to be contentedly mediocre — LAST VEGAS delivers.