What’s Aged the Worst?
De Niro's autopilot performance; PG-13 rating; Eddie's smart-sounding speeches; Abbie Cornish's running; the TV show
In the discussion (12)
Approx. transcript time · 00:49:27Read transcript
- De Niro is the pick: after Jackie Brown and Meet the Parents he made paycheck movies, doesn't seem fully into this one and scales it back like Gene Hackman's autopilot in The Replacements, though it works.
- A disagreement: not a top-20 De Niro performance, but he brings gravity to Carl Van Loon, is better than Paul Giamatti would be, and has an affinity with Cooper while letting him chew the scenery.
- De Niro could have met Cooper's final threat with a stare and a Heat-style reply; De Niro scales back on autopilot while Pacino gets big.
- The biggest aged-worst item is the rating: this should have been rated R, with more violence and sex.
- PG-13 is liked as is, because kids walking through the room are no problem and adults still get the drug and sex material. — Shea Serrano
- PG-13 suits the TNT, USA and Paramount cable universe with few edits; the TV series was canceled after one season.
- Eddie's smart-sounding speeches are rough on inspection: the Portugal salt-cod and Brits lines captivate an audience of nine people, and he sounds like he could have run Germany better than Hitler.
- The basketball version of Eddie sounding smart would be saying threes are worth more than twos, or the Process's bottom-out logic.
- Abbie Cornish runs pumping her fists; a track coach should have been hired for that scene.
- There is not much aged-worst; the disappointing TV show is the one item, despite excitement that Cooper pops up in it. — Shea Serrano
- An R version is wanted to see Cooper break an arm; older movies like Jaws are cited as more leniently rated, countered that a shark is a naturally occurring phenomenon, unlike Total Recall's violence.
- CBS should have made the show with an older lead, a 62-year-old CEO taking the drug.