The Last Laugh is a 2019 comedy/drama about a retired talent manager who is reunited with his first client, a comic who quit show business 50 years ago.
So no, it ain’t easy getting old for most, but the movies has long done their best to sort of run the gamut of giving our elderly years a wide spread from comedic good times to sentimental melancholy, from Grumpy Old Men to Driving Miss Daisy to On Golden Pond. With writer/director Greg Pritikin‘s newest addition for Netflix, we get The Last Laugh, a breezy, easy and mostly pleasant-enough distraction that certainly, if not slightly, tackles the aging issue, but from a point of view most will have no ability to connect with. That doesn’t make it bad, just sort of, well, there.
Skimming along unchallenged in his golden years, Al Hart (Chevy Chase) is basically alone and looking to avoid the singular possiblity of heading to a retirement community. His granddaughter Jeannie (Kate Micucci) has sent him materials about a local place that seems to be a good spot to settle, but he’s reluctant until one, day, he gives it shot. Once there, he runs into Buddy Green (Richard Dreyfuss) , a stand-up comedian, who gave up the limelight fifty years ago. The two men, feeling they still have something to give back, decide to reignite Green’s career and go on the road, starting a whole new adventure, picking up a younger woman (Andie MacDowell) who offers up some modest sexual tension.
The premise is fun enough, if not all that inventive. Surely, what might draw you to the film are the leads, the likes of Chase and Dreyfuss enough to get old fans on the sofa and watching. Dreyfuss especially has always had a sort of edgy comedic flare about him that most films didn’t take full advantage of, with 1991’s What About Bob? probably the best use of his talents in that corner. Then there’s Chase, a legend in some circles for his signature style, a mainstay in 80s movies that were part and parcel to many well-received and genuinely funny films. Putting them together seems like a solid mix for something big to happen.
However, The Last Laugh comes up well short of expectations, the film all too generic and underwritten, huddled too close to the middle ground, ending up feeling unavoidably contrived instead of authentic. Positioning Chase in an outdoor mausoleum on a bench for example, talking to his passed on wife strikes at manipulation with its sudden shift in canned music, moments like this far too forced rather than emotional. It’s just one early bit that sets a trend in the story where the movie doesn’t seem to trust its audience to embrace the whole concept.
Sure, there are a few moments that feel good of course, the cast automatically imbibed with gifts that make things work. The small relationship that sprouts up late in the film when Buddy’s son (Chris Parnell) shows up, throwing in an obvious twist, is actually the most touching in the story (if not wholly believable). It’s just too bad the movie is unwilling to really tackle any of it with any kind of earnestness, the film all too sterile and imbalanced to really matter.