El maestro del crimen

Old Guy is a comedic reworking of The Mechanic, the 1970s thriller that starred Charles Bronson.

Christoph Waltz is the ageing hitman Danny Dolinski. He still goes clubbing but has an arthritic hand. It means he cannot shoot straight.

His shadowy bosses are modernising. Out go the old timers. In come the young whippersnappers.

Danny has to train the Gen Z new blood, Wihlborg (Cooper Hoffman) who is still wet behind the ears and needs to learn the craft of being a hitman.

They are tasked to kill an Irish mobster, but the job goes south. Now they are the target.

This is a generic comedy thriller that has been done to death in the last few years. The screenplay is anaemic. It wastes the talented cast which includes Lucy Liu who really does not have much to do.

The only interesting thing about this movie is the sheer number of people with producer credits.

Old Man definitely hints of The Mechanic & others of a similar genre. Although I do think it was different enough to be very entertaining. Walz is an amazing actor, so for me I enjoyed his performance. I loved the premise, the dry humour, & the juxtaposition of generations. If the script had someone give it a final read through to tweak it, this movie could have delivered much more. The dialogue was at times stilted & awkward & they missed many chances to take advantage of the humourous situations throughout the film. So many pieces of a great movie are here but it doesn't quite live up to it. Still, overall a good movie and solid acting.

Talk about a movie that should be watched on your phone because everyone in it phoned it in. Christopher Waltz is horribly miscast as an aging hitman with an injury, he is about as convincing as Danny Devito's chances of being drafted to the NBA.

Everything in this movie is cheap and forgettable, be it the pathetic car chase or the abysmal digital fire. Literally finished watching this 5 mins ago and I'm struggling to remember any scene of performance worth mentioning.

The only positive is that it's runtime, it feels short and an easy film to have playing in the background when you are doing something else.

If your goal was to watch a film with great action, intrigue and classic hitman/spy vibes then avoid like the plague. This is a mess, wanting to be funny but isn't, wanting to be clever, but isn't, wanting to be entertaining and again isn't. It feels like a movie made for tax write-offs and has roped in a cast that legit are bound by some irreversible contract or ungodly bet.

It feels like either the movie was horribly cut, or whoever wrote dialogues and script was plain wasted. Or both. The pauses between phrases are too long, the dialogues end abruptly, the scenes pacing is way off, there's little reason to what's happening, there's no connection between characters - they just utter phrases for (seemingly) the sake of it.

The main character made look not only lacking wrist strength and mobility due to surgery, but lacking any sort of mobility and agility like he's ninety-plus already. The secondary main younger character is plain insufferable. And it's nothing about the actors, it's how the movie is made - I've no recollection of seeing the actor who plays the younger character, but I've plenty of recollections of seeing Lucy Liu and Christoph Waltz, and as great as they are, their characters look just as abysmal here. So it's definitely not an acting issue.

It's just... wasteful. Decent premise, even if not anything new. Great cast. Good potential. All wasted. Sad.

Danny Dolinski (Christoph Waltz) is a veteran hitman working for the London mob. He is recovering from hand surgery on his gun hand and expects to return to be the prime assassin. Instead, the organization is going younger and he is to mentor young hitman Wihlborg (Cooper Hoffman). Anata (Lucy Liu) is his longtime friend and nightclub manager.

This is trying to be a comedic crime thriller. I get the concept and it has the potential to work with better writing. Waltz is trying to do some comedy. I don't think that the younger Hoffman is up to the task. Lucy Liu doesn't have much to do. This is rather blah.