Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys

Based on Neil Simon’s play, Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys follows longtime Vaudeville partners Willy Clark (Walter Matthau) and Al Lewis (George Burns) as they reluctantly agree to reunite for a television special – with the movie detailing the various arguments and squabbles that ensue between the pair. It becomes clear fairly quickly that it’s the ongoing emphasis on those arguments and squabbles that confirms Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys‘ place as a misbegotten adaptation, as the movie, which seems to consist predominantly of scenes in which Matthau’s Willy shouts at various characters, suffers from a terminally arms-length atmosphere that’s compounded by filmmaker Herbert Ross’ stagy approach to the material (ie the picture, by and large, feels like a filmed play). There’s little doubt, as well, that one’s ability to embrace the slow-moving narrative is predicated on whether or not one finds Simon’s screenplay funny, although, as becomes more and more apparent, Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys suffers from an almost total dearth of laugh-out-loud moments due to its relentless emphasis on jokes and gags of an aggressively schticky nature (ie this stuff has aged incredibly poorly). The inclusion of a few sentimental bits towards the end comes far too late to make any kind of positive impact, and it’s ultimately impossible to label Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys as anything more than an antiquated misfire that just doesn’t work – which is a shame, certainly, given the promise afforded by Matthau and Burns’ very presence here.

*1/2 out of ****