Os Últimos Durões

Legends Douglas and Lancaster play two aging ex-train robbers who set out to prove they're not over the hill for one more heist. A fun film. It's nice to see two legends go head to head and have a few laughs...

Tough Guys re-unites after a near 30 year gap the screen pairing of Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster and as such it's a wonderful piece of nostalgia. The premise suits the stars very well Archie Long and Harry Doyle after 30 years in prison for a train robbery are released into society and find things aren't want the used to be back in the old neighbourhood. The duo are soon mixed up with a short sighted hit-man (a scene stealing Eli Wallach), a hero worshipping parole officer (Dana Cavey), an old time cop convinced they'll rob again (Charles Durning) and some seriously 80's style thugs. Add to this just dealing with Archies day job and Harry's new life in a retirement home and their is a recipe for comedy and some surprisingly touching moments as the pair come to terms with old age.

The film is fun and well paced although there are some big plot holes and inconsistencies you can overlook these as its not a serious film. Douglas and Lancaster are clearly having a blast making the movie and seeing them on screen again one last time is great. I'd recommend this film for a feel good comedy or a bit of nostalgia for older movie fans. 7/10

I wasn't disappointed when in 1986, Burt Lancaster announced on BBC's Wogan show that his new movie was going to star himself and his long time friend and frequent co-star Kirk Douglas. Since their first pairing in the brilliant noir thriller 'I Walk Alone' (1947), Lancaster and Douglas had made several appearances together. Who can forget Lancaster's tough talking Wyatt Earp and Douglas's equally tough yet terminally ill Doc Holliday in 'Gunfight at the OK Corral'?

So now it was the mid 80's, the age of the pepsi generation, I wondered how these two consistent stars would adapt to staring together again for the first time since the 60's. The answer is brilliant.

Harry Doyle (Lancaster), and Archie Long (Douglas) are released from prison after a 30 years sentence after being caught dead bang robbing a train. Eager to make a clean sweep, the two senior citizens, are looking forward to starting their new legitimate lives. However, all is not as they had hoped on the outside, and Harry and Archie have problems coming to terms with the way the world has changed. Director Kanew gives us a new genre here. Instead of the 'fish out of water' scenario, we have the 'two fishes that have been put back in the water after a severely long time' genre. However, Kanew also gives the audience the inevitable Clichés that go with it, and is always ready to fall back on a youth versus experience incident just about everytime the movie gets enjoyable. After being humiliated, patronised, and generally treated like dirt for the better part of a week, The two ageing gangsters decide that a life of crime has to be better then honest work, and predictably they revert to their previous careers as train robbers.

The film is enjoyable there's no escaping it, but there are more holes in the plot than there are in a grannies cardigan, and is also SOoooo predictable in fact the films outcome is more predictable than the outcome of a fight betwix elephant and duck. First of all to get 30 years simply for robbing a train, seems a bit excessive for the viewer to even find it believable. Co-incidentally the day the get out of prison is 1 week before the train they were caught robbing is making it's farewell run.

This aside the film IS enjoyable, and Lancaster and Douglas play their parts wonderfully and you enjoy the film more for their presence. Other cast members also rate highly, Eli Wallach is by far the funniest character, and his wonderful performance in some ways steals the film from it's intended stars. and the devine Alexis Smith makes a small cameo as Lancaster's ex lover. Charles Durning is unfortunately once again typecast as the over-weight lazy flatfoot (ala Dog Day Afternoon/The Sting) and although his performances are always good, you get tired pretty quickly of his tough talking patronising character. and finally there is (Pre Wayne's World) Dana Carvey as the Youthful Idealistic Parole Officer, but it's a shame that Carvey is restricted to playing pretty much a straight character, especially considering he is probably one of the funniest men working in Hollywood today.

Tough Guys should have been better, but I feel Kanew spent most of the budget on getting the perfect Sterling cast, rather than to hire a good script writer. Worth watching for the final appearance on-screen of this top notch duo. Since Lancaster's Death in 1994, I've warmed to this movie more knowing it could never happen again. It's just a shame it wasn't better as it could have been much better.

Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas were inexorably linked not just by their co-starring films together, but by the fact that Hedda Hopper in one of her books did a chapter on both of them. She entitled the chapter, The Terrible Tempered Twins and she bemoaned the fact that these two instead of being good little captives of the studio system that kept her in business, had the audacity to chart their own careers. Go into the production end and take total responsibility for the work they did.

It would never have worked had not Lancaster and Douglas not been good judges of the roles they were best suited for. Some stars never wanted that kind of responsibility or felt they were poor judges. William Holden said point blank after one picture where he was the producer, the responsibility was too much for him. Robert Taylor was widely quoted that he stayed with MGM as long as he did because he felt they knew best how to present him and what were good film properties.

But Burt and Kirk knew their minds and made their own careers work. Fortunately before both of them in the Nineties were felled by illness and Lancaster left us, they gave us one more co-starring part.

This one's a comedy though, something different for them. As Harry Doyle and Archie Long two elderly crooks released after a thirty year stretch for robbing the West Coast Flyer train, they find roles perfectly suited to their age and personality.

Lancaster's old and he knows it, but he still wants to be treated with some dignity. Douglas hasn't quite figured it out yet, but in time he gets the fact that time's caught up with him. They just can't adjust to changing times so they try all kinds of things to fit in. And then they decide on one spectacular coda to their lives and careers in the wonderful world of crime.

The two men are in great form and they get some able support from Alexis Smith, Charles Durning and Dana Carvey in the supporting cast. But special comment must be made for Eli Wallach's seeing eye hit-man. Good thing his part is not as long as the stars because he steals every scene he's in.

The 1980s was a period of transition as many great film legends died. Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Lawrence Olivier, Fred Astaire, Jimmy Cagney were just a few of those who left the scene. But there were attempts (before the end) to bring some of the great figures together. Bette Davis and Jimmy Steward made there only film together. Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn did ON GOLDEN POND. Cagney appeared with pal Pat O'Brien, as well as Donald O'Connor, in RAGTIME. Davis appeared with Lillian Gish, Anne Southern, and Vincent Price in THE WHALES OF AUGUST. And Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas appeared in this film.

In the Oscar ceremonies of 1985, Lancaster and Douglas had come in together to deliver an award, and everyone noted how healthy both men still were. It was over two decades since they appeared in a film as co-stars (SEVEN DAYS IN MAY), and some of the news items in the wake of their appearance suggested it was too bad there was no property that they could develop together. Shortly afterward this comedy was produced.

It had a great build-up, and I was fortunate to see it in a movie house. But it did not have a massive audience box-office, and was gone within six weeks. It was too bad, because it was a funny film, and would turn out to be the best comedy buddy film of the films that they did together.

Harry and Archie (Lancaster and Douglas) pulled off one of the smoothest and most impressive railway train robberies in American history back in 1947. They almost got away with it, except for the persistence of a police officer (played by Charles Durning) who broke the case and managed to bring them to jail. They have served nearly forty years in jail, and when released they are in for time shocks. After all, they were used to the world of 1946/47. While both are physically fit, both can't get out of their mental views from their youth.

On top of that, they have to deal with Durning, whose police career - after it's brilliant start - petered out leaving him embittered, and desperate to prove himself to the young pups who count the days until his enforced retirement. They have to deal with parole officer Dana Carvey, who has all the typical problems of a nice, naive parole officer. They have to deal with hostility around them from all peoples - mostly the young, but the middle aged are not much better. They resemble Reggie Kray, one time kingpin of London's largest criminal empire, who in his later years when interviewed pointed out to reporters that (while he did not dismiss his own use of violence against opponents in other gangs) he did dislike the lack of respect he observed towards older citizens. He and his brother Ronnie never stood for that kind of thing. Neither do Harry and Archie here. When threatened as easy, elderly targets by a gang of punks, they beat up the punks quite effectively.

To add to their woes is the most ridiculous, but scrupulous, hit-man in modern cinema: Leon B. Little (Eli Wallach - who almost walks off with the picture). Hired on a contract against the boys back in their heyday, their being in prison prevented the ever ready Little from completing their executions. Even the death of the idiot who hired him means nothing - he was paid already, and he has a code of honor with his clients.

That in the end, the battle of youth and old age unites Lancaster, Douglas, Wallach, and even Durning should not surprise anyone. All four manage to demonstrate that it is street smarts and brains, not youthful idealism (paging Carvey) that will win out in the end. The film has some nice moments, such as Douglas almost going in for dirty dancing with a young chippy, and Lancaster protesting the slop he has to eat in an old age home, and memorably showing his teeth to advantage for a purpose (for a change). It was a good conclusion to the long road of movies these two cinema giants made together - and a funny one too.