The Odd Couple II

Thirty years later, Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison (Lemmon and Matthau) are back together. In Neil Simon's original script, they're still the same old cantankerous dichotomists (Felix the neatnik, Oscar the slob), feuding over the bedding, the car, and everything else, but as directed by John Hughes protégé Howard Deutch (Pretty in Pink, Grumpier Old Men), they're beginning to slow down, and much of the melancholy of Gene Saks 1968 version is lost in a whirlwind of libido jokes and half-baked comic setups that go nowhere fast. Originally thrown together by the vagaries of divorce, Oscar and Felix are this time reunited when their children -- Hannah Ungar (Waltz) and Bruce Madison (Silverman) -- decide to get married. Felix is still living in New York, but Oscar has moved to Florida, poker buddies and all, and continues his existence as an AAA-league sports announcer in that more hospitable climate. Meeting up at LAX, the pair rent a car and head out to the wedding with predictable results. The main body of Deutch's film relies heavily on the lowbrow comic shenanigans he honed while working for Hughes -- it's the same sort of amicable feuding that worked so well in Grumpier Old Men, but this time it comes across as obligated instead of spontaneous. I suppose we should be thankful that Deutch doesn't play the sentimentality card as often as he could, but nonetheless something is lacking. Simon's original play -- and Saks' original adaptation -- were rife with dark undercurrents and melancholia. Here were two guys whose spouses had kicked them out into the heart of the big city to fend for themselves: not kindred spirits by a long shot, but warring camps brought together out of necessity, learning to fend for themselves and each other. Sure, it was a comedy, but there was much more to it than that. However, this new take on things reduces the pair to simple cookie-cutter constructs. There's precious little dynamic tension here, unless you consider the duo's geriatric antics tension-headache inducing. The cardboard, road-trip storyline is pure cliché, too, but somehow Lemmon and Matthau manage to pull out some great gags -- acid one-liners, mostly -- that keep you laughing. It's a film hardly worthy of their respective talents, but at the same time it is tremendously entertaining in spots: Oscar and Felix's almost-coupling with a pair of Thelma and Louise-types at a dingy roadhouse saloon, missing luggage, missed turnpikes, and so on make for light comic relief that works much better than it should. If you think of TV's Tony Randall and Jack Klugman when someone mentions The Odd Couple, Saks' film original with Lemmon and Matthau is by far the better work, and highly recommended. Deutch's sequel takes the gritty NYC bite out of these two, and replaces it with toothless comic pratfalls and little else.