It’s baffling that a film featuring a two-time Oscar winner and a promising, beloved young actor as squabbling hitmen could be as dreadfully dull as “Old Guy.” Director Simon West (“Con Air”) and writer Greg Johnson (“The Last Son”) take the tired Grumpy Veteran Argues With Fresh-Faced Rookie trope to all-new lows in a film that feels maddeningly disinterested in delivering any of its underdeveloped goods. What should be a plucky, whip-smart character-driven actioner about an elderly assassin fighting career obsolescence morphs into a dusty, no-stakes patchwork of clichés that shrugs off any resonance, let alone entertainment value.
Aging ladies man Danny Dolinski (Christoph Waltz) loves the art of the kill as a highly skilled, highly paid assassin for a British mob. His thick, ’70s-style handlebar mustache and equally dated leather bomber jacket act as his real-world armor, yet also announce he’s a bit of a relic. However, after hand surgery puts him out of commission for 6 weeks, his boss Opal (Ann Akinjirin) reconsiders his job’s longevity. He gets word that, instead of forced retirement, he’ll now be paired with Wihlborg (Cooper Hoffman), a 20-something alleged prodigy who’s surreptitiously killed more bystanders than targets. Danny takes an instant dislike to his younger charge, given that he paints his fingernails, wears so much pink and has a totally different methodology when it comes to taking out their marks.
The pugnacious pair hightail it to Danny’s hometown of Belfast, Ireland to make contact with their handler William (Tony Hirst) and his henchwoman Simone (Kate Katzman). Danny brings along his club-owner lady friend Anata (Lucy Liu) to act as a buffer between him and his protégé, and she’s in it to meet up with a date who’s in town from overseas. William informs the guys their mission is to take out mafiosos Micha (Lauterio Zamparelli), Barbierri (Conor Mullen) and Yatzeck (Rory Mullen) in order for the UK branch to rule over all. Snuffing out their first target proves difficult for the duo, what with Danny’s aim being off, and their second mission is interrupted by an unforeseen roadblock. Soon, they learn they’re actually next on the hit list.
On paper, the pitch might have sounded promising. It certainly has interesting elements that, in the right hands, could be fashioned into a rousing diversion. In this case, they were only sufficient for a hooky trailer. In its entirety, the film flails when attempting to find a compelling story and a coherent throughline for these characters’ lives. We’re given little reason to care about anyone. The detailing on these men’s flinty personalities is either revealed too late (like the fact Wihlborg’s adopted) or not at all in situations where we’re tasked to understand their inconsistent behaviors (like Dolinski’s mindset).
To call it a comedy of any variety is a stretch since the filmmakers can’t figure out what’s inherently funny about any given situation these two find themselves in. The banter is where this film should soar, both in the dialogue and in the performances from actors of Waltz and Hoffman’s caliber, yet the inert material and its workman-like direction desperately need an infusion of propulsive hilarity. Bless the actors’ attempts to instill their roles with pathos and gravitas, but the material is achingly not there for them. Their arguments are caustic, not playfully funny. Making the leads play to sloppy Boomer and Gen Z stereotypes is a slight to everyone involved, including the audience. Worse, Liu’s one-dimensional moll spends the majority of her supporting screen time agonizing over toxic men, despite the actor’s best efforts to elevate the material.
Action sequences are also lackluster, delivering the bare minimum to move the characters from point A to point B. There’s not much visual dexterity demonstrated, whether in a car pursuit or a nightclub oversaturated with the glow of “John Wick”-style neon. Little thought is applied to the fisticuffs and gunplay, often cutting away too soon from the impact of the hits. A passionless assembly steamrolls over character-building moments, most notably when Danny intercepts Wihlborg from accidentally shooting a child (Maisy Crowley), as it’s a blink-and-miss-it shot of their millisecond tussle.
The third-act shootout is the lone instance where there’s any snappy sense of rhythm coursing through the film’s veins, courtesy of Mono Town’s track “Two Bullets,” which underscores Danny’s inevitable return to fine form. But at that point, very little is gained after sitting through all the anti-climactic hijinks. On top of that, the bifurcated score underlines the film’s identity crisis, oscillating between plucky guitar compositions from Andrew Simon McAllister better suited to a buddy-cop comedy and smooth, synth-heavy instrumentals from Mono Town that align more with a sleek spy flick.
Clearly aspiring to the heights of “In Bruges” and “Grosse Pointe Blank” with its narrative and character construction, the project disappoints on almost every level. From these contract killers’ inability to sniff out a set-up to the way they walk with blinders on through their criminal underworld, it proves frustrating to be miles ahead of their unfolding circumstances. It’s virtually hollow in every regard, not just in the way it dodges any commentary on aging in an industry that values youth, but also how it fails to put a reinvigorating spin on its genre. This “Old Guy” should go directly to hospice, because it’s in dire need of a lifeline.
