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Canberra Today 11°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Review: ‘Last Vegas’ (M) **

last-vegas 1FOUR buddies since childhood have grown apart until one of them contacts the other three to invite them to Las Vegas for a bachelor party.

That fundamental premise has been used for the “Hangover” series which never had much real grunt. With “Last Vegas”, four geriatric movie stars offer a modicum of freshness and variation on a worn-out theme. Septuagenarian guys at a bachelor party have different problems, aspirations and issues from men half their ages.

last-vegasThe actors are Michael Douglas (born 1944), Robert de Niro (1943), Morgan Freeman (1937) and Kevin Kline (1947). Douglas plays the prospective groom. The bride has only a marginal role in the film. The principal female character is bar singer Diana (Mary Steenburgen, who turned 61 last weekend and looks dishy as well as sings pleasingly).

The other main character is not a person but a community – Las Vegas, with conspicuous energy consumption, young women whose clothes scarcely restrain formidable busts, ugly architecture and worse decoration, excess in all branches of hedonism. Specially the gambling that powers its Gross Community Product!

Of the four friends, Douglas has gone furthest past his prime. Morgan Freeman delivers the best value. De Niro does his set-piece grumpy thing, Kline offers relative restraint. Steenburgen has the best of the dialogue.

 At Dendy, Hoyts and Limelight

 

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Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

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