Tough Guys

Here is (in that recurrent phrase from the NY Times) "a good idea which hops the track." It might have been nice--a story about two bank robbers leaving prison after 30 years and trying to and just to modern life, and having to resort to their old skills. It could almost have been an updated “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” You couldn't have asked for better performers than Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas as the two heroes. But instead, drearily, the stupid picture proceeds to trash every opportunity with juvenile pranks and witless satire about modern dress, modern sex, modern foods, modern kids, blah blah blah. Typical. Even the script is stupidly inconsistent; why are the two guys clued in to some things but not others? Some poor sap John Ritter look-alike plays the two heroes' parocle officer, in a feeble attempt to have a youthful character, as it these two great stars needed someone around to attract an audience. Hell, they define machismo. Even Douglas and Lancaster look slightly unsomfortable mouthing some of the script's more idiotic lines, as if they were caught up in a project that wasn't turning out quite the way they had expected. (Maybe it read better than it played). In a desperate attempt to make the two hoods likeable and inoffensive, the writer drailned everey drop of spark and verve out of them. Some of Lancaster's scenes of reminiscence are touching, perhaps giving some idea of what the picture might have been, but most of Douglas' interactions with modern culture are just embarrassaing. Perhaps a lesson can be derived from this: any picture that requires as great a star as Kirk Douglas to moon the camera is beyond hope and does not deserve your attention.