Review: A sweet and charming film that will no doubt delight every Laurel and Hardy fan out there.
There are many beautiful movies about romantic relationships out there, but too few beautiful movies about close friendships. Stan and Ollie captures the latter perfectly though. This is a movie about close friends who have been together too long to exist apart from each other. While the duo's classic movies are filled with silly slapstick humor, underneath that is always an unbreakable bond between the Stan and Ollie characters that add so much to the charm of those films. This movie shows that a similar bond truly existed among the actors themselves. Like their on screen characters they fought and got mad at each other, but underneath all of it they deeply cared about each other, sharing a friendship that nothing could break. While this film definitely shows that the two offscreen where different from the two onscreen, we can see clearly that both the characters and the men shared this bond. Because of this the underlying sweetness of that made the old Laurel and Hardy films so great also make this movie great.
John C. Reilly and Steve Coogan can not get enough praise for how well they played Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy here. As a lifelong fan of Laurel and Hardy films, I thought it would be impossible for any actors to capture the men as perfectly as they do here. They are many times during this movie in which you forget you are watching a movie about Laurel and Hardy and think that you are actually watching Laurel and Hardy. This is especially true of the times when they recreate scenes from Way Out West (1937), County Hospital (1932) and Zenobia (1939). These are near perfect recreations and the closest anyone will ever come to recapturing the magic of those classic films. They have even the subtlest gestures down pat. Even when they perform sketches that Stan and Babe (as people called Oliver Hardy in real life) never actually filmed you can feel the closest thing to the pure magic of Laurel and Hardy outside of the old films.
The supporting cast is also great here. I love Shirley Henderson and Nina Arianda as Stan and Babe's wives. They were fantastic and added a lot of great enjoyment and humor to this film as well.
It would have been so easy for a movie about two men growing old to be depressing. However this film avoids that trap very well. This is because along with the sadness there is the warmth of the two men and the passion clearly felt for the films subject matter. It can clearly be felt that this movie was made by people who love Laurel and Hardy as much as I do, and this passion and joy can be felt though the whole movie.
I may have to say though this movie is aimed towards fans of Laurel and Hardy. While this was perfect for me and was a huge part of why I love the movie, it may not work for everybody. I suggest if you haven't watched the classic Laurel and Hardy films, I suggest you watch at least one of their classic films before seeing this, it will make the experience all the better. This is not to say you won't enjoy it if you aren't familiar with the classic films, but only that you'd be missing out on quite a bit. I suggest Way Out West (1937), because it is not only a great movie, but quite a bit of this film references it.
I love everything about this movie and if you are a Laurel and Hardy fan as I am, I say you should watch this as soon as possible.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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