Stand Up Guys (2013)

It’s a kick to see Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin play off each other in “Stand Up Guys,” a comedy about aging gangsters who can still -– as stated repeatedly -– kick ass or chew gun, and no one has any gum. That joke gets repeated. Our three acting gods make it work. Mostly. What they cannot save is the stick a needle in a hard cock joke, which De Niro already suffered through with Ben Stiller. And not even Brando in his prime could save the WT-holy-F gang rape victim bit which has the trio finding a bound, gagged, and naked assault victim in the trunk of a car they have stolen. Get her to the hospital? Is she traumatized? Injured? No. Our heroes take the lady out for dinner, find the perps, and layout violent justice, hooting and hollering along the way. Seriously. Really. Actor-turned-director Fisher Stevens is so busy making these guys woo-ha cwazzy that he never makes them dangerous, so much so that not even the notion of Walken’s assassin being forced to kill Pacino’s crook makes a slight dent. Irony: Despite the deluge of dick jokes, “Guys” has no balls. C+

Get Smart (2008)

"Get Smart" is a goofy-fun spin on the TV classic, with the hilarious, deadpan Steve Carell taking over for the late Don Adams. The plot is the same: Agent 86 Maxwell Smart works for Control, a top-secret U.S. government spy agency tasked with defeating the evil conglomerate Chaos. Here, Smart is teamed with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway, also dead pan funny) to hunt missing nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union.

The investigation and hunt is peppered with the same slapstick comedy, tongue-twister jokes and bawdy humor that made the show wildly funny, including a scene where Smart wakes up after an accident and discovers that 99 has dressed him in a tuxedo, and traded his briefs for boxers. The action is bigger here than the TV show, but most of it manages to stay in the shadow of comedy.

Alan Arkin steals the film with just a few scenes where his old guy plays tough, or nearly dies at the end of a swordfish. Terence "Kneel before Zod" Stamp plays the villain, perfectly menacing and hilarious. James Caan appears as a U.S. president who can't quite pronounce "nuclear" and continues reading a book to children during a national disaster. B