Film Reviews

Old Dogs

• Rating:
• Director: Walt Becker
• Starring: John Travolta
• Details: US/88mins PG

One of the most desperate films to come out of Hollywood in some time, Old Dogs actually marks a career low for both John Travolta and Robin Williams - no mean feat when you consider some of the bile they've churned out over the years. An embarrassment for all concerned, absolutely no one escapes this unfunny piece of crap unscathed.
Considering this is directed by the man behind the equally banal, and similarly titled, Wild Hogs, Travolta in particular should have seen it coming. Williams, meanwhile, is probably just happy to be paying the mortgage.
Williams and Travolta's sports marketing executives are on the cusp of the biggest deal of their lives - with the obligatory Asian businessmen - when Williams is reacquainted with Kelly Preston's old flame. Thinking they can pick up where they left off, she springs two youngsters out of nowhere and informs him he was the one that knocked her up with them. On top of that, she's being shipped off to prison for two weeks, and needs someone to mind the little monsters; what better way to bond with his new found kids for the first time then when their auld one is in the slammer - it's a win win!
Alas, the biggest deal of their lives is still imminent, and they need to sort that out pronto, while maybe learning a thing or two about themselves and family in the process.
How on earth films like this get made, when there are obviously huge problems with the script in the first place, is beyond me. Williams and Travolta are two actors desperately in need of a hit, and they were obviously hoping this appallingly broad comedy would put bums on seats. The only real way they're going to do that, and keep people there, is by screening it on airplanes and hoping there's no one already mildly depressed on board. Not one joke works, and even a collection of cameos from the normally reliable likes of Justin Long and Matt Dillon fail to raise so much as a twinge of a chuckle.
Lazy, horribly written, woefully acted and directed with the skill of a amateur porn director, Old Dogs is so bad it's almost offensive.

Review by Mike Sheridan