GRUMPY OLD MEN - Blu-ray (WB 1993) Warner Home Video

Conceived as something of a reunion for one-time ‘Odd Couple’ costars, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, Donald Petrie’s Grumpy Old Men (1993) is a delightfully acidic rom/com, charting the exploits of two elderly, and, extremely adversarial Wabasha Minnesota bachelors, destined, through the thick and thin of things, to remain the best of friends. We really need to doff our caps to Lemmon and Matthau, whose careers were forever intertwined for 10 glorious outings together (11, if you count 1991’s JFK, in which they both appeared, but had no scenes together), the alliance between Lemmon’s ‘magic time’ optimist, and Matthau’s laid-back curmudgeon, beginning in 1966’s blissfully obtuse and kooky, The Fortune Cookie. Behind closed doors, Lemmon and Matthau became the best of friends, a devotion to prove legendary and richly rewarding. In an interview, Lemmon once referred to Matthau as the most genuine and heartfelt friend a guy could ever have to which Matthau, blushing but never willing to let a good gag go unnoticed, wholeheartedly concurred. He was that good! When Matthau succumbed to a heart attack in 2001, Lemmon was the first to pay tribute to his fallen friend’s ironic dignity in a memorial where the rabbi told jokes, Matthau’s Super Bowl betting line was printed on the back of the eulogy programs, and, attendees were treated to a meal of kosher hot dogs. What a way to go! “He was my best friend,” Lemmon reasoned, “I love him. I always will. And I will miss him.  One thing is a constant. Whenever I was with Walter, whether it was in a film or personally, it was always a magic time."

Much of that magic is on tap in Grumpy Old Men, the screenplay by Mark Steven Johnson, a devilishly clever and multilayered homage to Lemmon and Matthau’s friendship,  taken to its extreme and turned on end as their feuding alter egos in the movie never entirely like one another, but tolerate each other’s company for the sake of their children – and, their respective ‘dates’. Oh yes, these aged bachelors are not yet ready to give up the ghost of romance. Grumpy Old Men plays like a winning formula, peppered in gross miscalculations between two coots who have paved the way for their own current unraveling of temperament. And so it goes, that since the death of his wife, May, retired school teacher, John Gustafson (Lemmon) has lived in relative seclusion, seemingly unable to move on with the daily business of living. John’s daughter, Melanie (Darryl Hannah) is estranged from her husband, Mike (Christopher MacDonald) and much his concern. Also, on John’s plate is his immediate eviction after the IRS perceive he is $30,000 behind in his taxes. Paramount in John’s life is his tempestuous relationship with neighbor, Max Goldman (Matthau). The two simply hate each other – though the ‘why’ at the crux of their mutual disdain will only later yield to cooler reason.

At present, both men are stirred in their romantic thoughts with the arrival of eclectic free spirit, Ariel Truax (Ann-Margaret). A sculptor/painter with laissez faire ideas about living life to its fullest, Ariel makes her initial move on John. The two become lovers. However, when John believes he has nothing to offer Ariel apart from himself, he quietly breaks her heart, allowing Max to move right in. Meanwhile, John attempts to clumsily entangle Melanie in a romance with Max’s single son, Jacob (Kevin Pollak). The two were once high school sweethearts. However, when Melanie awkwardly arrives to visit John for Christmas with Mike in tow, she effectively deflates both John and Jacob’s hopes for rekindling romance. Depressed and alone, John ventures into the cold and suffers a near-fatal heart attack. Max and Ariel rush to John’s side, and Jacob – the newly appointed mayor of Wabasha - thwarts the IRS foreclosure on John’s home with Max cutting a check to make certain John will remain his neighbor for many years to come. Ariel confesses to Max she loves John and the couple are wed shortly before the final fade out.

Like virtually everything Lemmon and Matthau touched together, Grumpy Old Men was a colossal success, grossing more than $70 million, proving classic screen teams – even legendary ones – could hold their own at the box office with character-driven good humor pitted against the mindless summer fluff and blockbusters. Suddenly Matthau and Lemmon, who had not made a picture together since 1981’s Buddy/Buddy were hotter than ever. Viewed today, Grumpy Old Men is a genuine hoot, retaining its bitter edge in dark, often sexually risqué humor. You can get away with an awful lot when your actors are teetering on the bring of their mid-70’s, more so for the crude barbs, randomly pitched by actor, Burgess Meredith – 86 yrs. young and cast as John’s randy old sod of a father, Grandpa J.W. Gustafson. Despite the ‘blue humor’ it is the ‘feel good’ at the end of the story that keeps us warm during these cold and snowy nights depicted in the movie. And when all else fails, there’s always Matthau and Lemmon to enjoy.

Warner Home Video has at long last done Grumpy Old Men justice with a 1080p Blu-Ray that easily bests its own slip-shod full frame standard DVD. There is no comparison between these two discs to intelligently speak of. The Blu-Ray’s refined image captures the subtle starkness of John E. Jensen’s cinematography. Flesh tones appear slightly pinkish but fine detail is evident throughout as is film grain. The audio is True HD Dolby 2.0 and adequate for this presentation. The one failing of this disc is that Warner Home Video has not seen fit to give us even a brief featurette or retrospective on either the film or the careers of its two memorable costars. A theatrical trailer is the only extra feature. Nevertheless, recommended.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4

EXTRAS

0