Old Dogs

Director: Walt Becker
Writers: David Diamond, David Weissman
Starring: John Travolta, Robin Williams, Kelly Preston
Release Date: November 27, 2009
Length: 1 hour 28 minutes

Have you ever wanted to poke your eyes out with a stick multiple times within a two-hour period? Have you ever wanted to run around screaming, “I hate the world!”? Have you ever wanted to kick yourself for wasting your money on something stupid? If you have, then you know what it’s like to watch Old Dogs. John Travolta and Robin Williams (who just can’t seem to get any good work these days) are best friends Dan and Charlie own a sports market company in New York together. Charlie is the typical old bachelor guy who gets young girls (lord knows why any young woman would be attracted to that dyed old black shiny hair) and Dan is the other friend.  One day, very out of the blue, a woman named Vicki (Kelly Preston) Dan married one night in Vegas calls him up and asks him to go for dinner. At dinner, Dan finds out he is the father of twins that are 8 years old. He now is obligated to take care of them for two weeks while Vicki is in prison…don’t ask. No one knows why it has taken this long for Vicki to tell Dan he has children and no one knows why these kids call Dan “dad” right off the bat. Sometimes while watching a film, you have to put up with not questioning it and move on, because there might be something in store later in the film.  Not for Old Dogs though.  When I saw the trailer for this film, people around me said it looked kind of funny and they might see it. I agreed that there were some humorous parts in the trailer but in the back of my mind I knew, that somewhere toward the end of this movie there would be a moral to the story in which we are supposed to sympathize for these characters in what is supposed to be a comedy. I have unfortunately witnessed this in many horrible comedies, and each time I think I am going to rip out my intestines because I would prefer that to watching that unbearable part in an unbearable movie. Surprisingly, 3 people wrote this film. You would think that between those three brains, one of them would notice that this film was not only not funny at all, but also agonizingly horrible. There was a time when Robin Williams used to make so many people laugh because he truly was and still is a great comedian, but unfortunately for him, he just hasn’t been getting any luck recently with good writers. Watching the comedy in this film is like watching comedy from the 1930’s. I don’t think the writers of Old Dogs realized that slapstick comedy was meant to stay in Charlie Chaplin films. I hate to break it to you, but people getting hit in the crotch just doesn’t generate laughs anymore. I cannot think of any other time where I have wanted to scream so badly when I saw this film. There’s nothing else like it. Old Dogs might just be the worst movie of the year.