There are some comedy duos that just plain work, pairs that are natural together and inherently funny. Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau were one of those teams. Even when the film they were wasn't the best, when the two men were on screen opposite one other, there was magic at work. When the script they were working with was good, the two were an unbeatable duo. The recently released to Blu-ray Grumpy Old Men certainly isn't the height of their comic genius, but it does represent a truly funny movie and Lemmon and Matthau are at the top of their game in it.
The story follows two older men, John Gustafson (Lemmon) and Max Goldman (Matthau) as they engage in a next-door neighbor rivalry that has been going on f
or nearly 50 years. Things reach a head in the film as a new, attractive woman, Ariel Truax (Ann-Margret), moves in across the street. Gustafson and Goldman didn't really need anything new to fight about, but both will use any excuse they can possibly latch onto to attack the other.
It is in these attacks that the film finds most of its humor. The two crotchety men battle it out doing everything from changing television channels in the middle of a show (Goldman in his house using a remote to affect the TV in Gustafson's), to placing a dead fish in the other's backseat, to numerous other, equally memorable, things.
Donald Petrie's direction of Mark Steven Johnson's script doesn't just let Matthau and Lemmon get away with cheap practical jokes however. No, instead, the two actors are also forced to look at some of the harsh realities of getting old. Both men are widowers, and both men's kids (played by Darryl Hannah and Kevin Pollak) have lives of their own. Gustafson and Goldman don't really live in a world which has passed them by – they are very much involved in their community – but there is a certainly loneliness the men both feel.
Without that sense of loneliness, the practical jokes that they play
one another may come across as harsh or cruel, but, with that loneliness, they don't. No matter how much the two men complain about one another and claim to hate each other, they quite obviously revel in joking with each other – they're infuriated by the other, but there's clearly a great respect and love (even if they won't admit it) underneath it all.
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