Producers: Simon West, Jib Polhemus, Martin Brennan, Norman Golightly, Hal Sadoff and Petr Jákl Director: Simon West Screenplay: Greg Johnson Cast: Christoph Waltz, Lucy Liu, Cooper Hoffman, Ryan McParland, Ann Akinjirin, Jason Done, Tony Hirst, Kate Katzman, Helen Ryan, Conor Mullen, Rory Mullen, Karishma Navekar, Charlie Hamblett, Maisy Crowley and Desmond Eastwood Distributor: The Avenue
Grade: C
Another week, another hit man movie—one that turns out to be a thoroughly mediocre entry in the groaningly overstuffed genre, offering little that’s new and not doing enough to invigorate the familiar stuff.
The sole distinction of “Old Guy” is that it stars Christoph Waltz, who brings his customary flair (as well as a prodigious moustache) to the role of Danny Dolinski, a veteran killer-for-hire who’s being sidelined by his longtime controller Opal (Ann Akinjirin) against whom, if he were in a different profession, he might bring a discrimination action on grounds of ageism.
But Opal has some justification for forcing Danny into semi-retirement: his shooting hand was seriously injured, how we don’t know, and though a surgeon has done his best to fuse the joints, Dolinski’s fingers can still seize up at any moment. Anyway, she still intends to use him to dispose of employees who have proven unreliable (like the thug played by Ryan McParland in an early sequence) and to serve as a mentor of sorts to promising Wihlborg (Cooper Hoffman), an adept young killer who has the unfortunate habit of leaving too many innocent bystanders behind as collateral damage.
The fact that the abstemious, New Agey Wihlborg is the diametrical opposite of hard-living, hedonistic Danny is supposed to add humorous contrast to the forced partnership, but the jokes that scripter Greg Johnson invents for them—like Wihlborg sarcastically calling Danny Obi-wan, or Dolinski dismissing Wihlborg as Nancy Reagan when the younger guy criticizes his drug use (a reference Wihlborg, of course, doesn’t get)—land with a thud.
In any event, the duo are sent to Belfast to terminate some of the major players in the Northern Irish mob, apparently so that Opal and her cohorts can take over. Danny impulsively invites Anata (Lucy Liu) along—she’s the manager of a swanky London club that serves as a bordello, and claims that she’s always wanted to visit there. So as Danny gets to work, he’ll have somebody to spend the nights with.
The first kill, on a golf course, goes badly when Danny’s hand acts up and Wihlborg has to save the day. The second is meant to demonstrate another difference between the unwilling partners—Danny has old-school principles, while Wihlborg is ethics-free. That’s made clear when Danny not only refuses to be bribed by their target (Conor Mullen) into sparing him and instead killing their employer, but makes sure that the guy’s sweet little granddaughter (Maisy Crowley) is tucked safely in bed before blasting her granddad.
His adherence to a code is even more emphatically proven when, in the final act, he insists on rescuing Wihlborg, who’s captured when they’re betrayed by one of their own. Miraculously, Danny’s hand shows no signs of impairment as he effortlessly disposes of a small army of well-armed thugs and takes out their leader. Nonetheless the business puts them all at risk, and they must flee to safer climes, stopping only to pick up Danny’s aged mother (Helen Ryan). We’ve been told early on that he’d extricated her from Poland, but the old girl appears to have been in Ireland long enough to have picked up a thick brogue even though her son retains his accent.
“Old Guy” offers some nice shots of the Irish countryside, courtesy of cinematographer Martin Ahlgren, but despite Waltz’s energy and the efforts of director Simon West, an action-movie veteran, and no fewer than four editors (Andrew MacRitchie, Todd E. Miller, Chris Gill, John Walters), it manages to stir up very little suspense or excitement.
Nor does the cast apart from Waltz add much to the mix. Hoffman may have inherited some of his father’s talent, but he simply seems miscast here, though the script gives him no help. Liu fares even worse: a scene with a doctor she’s been romancing in hopes of something permanent, clumsily inserted to give the character a smidgen some depth, is an embarrassment. Oh, well, anyone who’s ever seen a movie before knows full well from their first moment onscreen that Anata and Danny are fated to be together in the end (Mother Dolinski obviously can tell that as soon as she meets her). The supporting cast is purely functional, though Ryan and Crowley each connect; so is Heather Greenlees’ production design (only Opal’s mansion impresses), along with the drab score by Andrew Simon McAllister and Zero Vu.
It’s nice to see Waltz in a lead role. Now would somebody write one worthy of him? The best you can say about “Old Guy” is that it’s not as bad as “Love Hurts,” and doesn’t treat him as poorly as that mess did Ke Huy Quan.