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DVD Review


DVD cover

The Sunshine Boys (1996)

 

Starring: Peter Falk, Woody Allen and Sarah Jessica Parker
Distributor: Fabulous Films Ltd / Fremantle Media Enterprises
RRP: £14.99
Certificate: U
Release Date: 04 January 2016


Vaudeville comedy duo Lewis and Clark were the comic heroes of the 1950’s. Now long forgotten, Warner Brothers attempts to bring them back together for cameos in a movie that’s “funnier than Home Alone”. Offered $75,000 a-piece and a chance to resurrect their careers, it’s an offer they can’t refuse... if only they could stand the sight of each other...

The Sunshine Boys is based on Neil Simon's 1972 Broadway play. Peter Falk and Woody Allen play a comedy team double act of yesteryear who look set to be thrust back in the limelight, briefly, in cameos for a new comedy film. The trouble is they've not spoken to each other in over a decade and the career break up wasn't amicable at all.

The film opens with Falk (as Willy Clark) trying to find the location for an audition for a commercial. In the brief moments we see him interact with the traffic and youths on the street, the audience already knows that he's a difficult and surly individual who won't admit that he's in the wrong. When he arrives at the audition, he meets with his niece, Nancy Clark (Sarah Jessica Parker) who is also a talent agent. Sadly, things don't go too well, with Willy trying to rewrite the lines given to him.

Willy hasn't worked properly in years, and Nancy is really helping him as a favour - a thankless task. So, when Warner Bros. approach her and ask if Willy and his old comedy partner Al Lewis (played by Woody Allen) will appear in a brief cameo, for a substantial amount of money, Nancy has to convince Willy and then track down Will and get him to also appear.

Willy blames Al for breaking up the comedy team, but as the film unfolds, Al explains why he wanted to call it a day as well as confessing that Willy was a bully and would never perform things as they were in the script.

The comedy of this movie comes from the duo meeting, on a number of occasions, to both make up and to run through the script and rehearse their cameo appearances. It's an amusing film, but hardly laugh out loud funny. Even if you weren't aware, you'd probably guess it was based on a stage play. The locations are limited to a handful of scenes and there are only a handful of characters.

It's amusing, but I couldn't help thinking that Willy was a little too over the top with his necessity to change everything, and his inability to tell what was funny was a little hard to believe.

The only extra is the trailer.

7

Nick Smithson

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