Movie Review: OLD GUY

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: February 21st, 2025 / 01:55 AM

Rating: R
Stars: Christoph Waltz, Lucy Liu, Cooper Hoffman, Ryan McParland, Ann Akinjirin, Jason Done, Tony Hirst, Kate Katzman, Connor Mullen, Rory Mullen, Helen Ryan
Writer: Greg Johnson
Director: Simon West
Distributor: The Avenue
Release Date: February 21, 2025

In OLD GUY, Christoph Waltz stars title character Danny Dolinski. Danny has been the best of the best in terms of U.K. mob hitmen for thirty years. But now all that career longevity has become a drawback, because his employers want new blood.

It doesn’t help that Danny is recovering from surgery on his gun hand. Boss Opal (Ann Akinjirin) offers to put Danny back in the field, in a supervisory capacity. He is to advise and evaluate up-and-coming younger hitman Wilhborg (Cooper Hoffman), who has completed seven assignments so far. The only problem with Wilhborg is his tendency to kill bystanders, which Opal wants Danny to curb.

Wilhborg feels he doesn’t need a babysitter; Danny feels he can do the job himself.

The action moves from London to Belfast. Director Simon West gives us a few nice scenic moments, but the story calls for a lot of gritty industrial settings.

Greg Johnson’s script goes pretty much where we expect it to go. We can tell from the timing and delivery that this is meant to be black comedy, but most of the jokes don’t land.

There’s a bit of disconnect with both main characters. For someone whose history with criminal hierarchy goes way back, Danny is uncommonly vocal in his disappointment with being sidelined. An old pro would likely feel everything that Danny expresses, but it doesn’t seem like something someone in his position would speak about so much with colleagues.

It also is hard to believe that someone as hard-drinking and pill-popping as Danny would be able to report for duty at a moment’s notice and carry out killings with the required precision.

With Wilhborg, he has a rep for being icy and evil, but while this is discussed, we never actually see it. Wilhborg’s healthy habits (no smoking, no drinking, no carbs in the morning) irk Danny, but they seem less like a generational issue and more a matter of temperament.

This is not the fault of the actors. Waltz gives energy to Danny’s frustration, and Hoffman puts nuance in Wilhborg’s studied calm and increasing exasperation.

Finally, while it’s wholly credible that Danny and Wilhborg don’t know much about the motives of their employers, we don’t become invested in why all of this is happening.

Things pick up in the third act, when there’s a sense of genuine urgency. The film becomes a little tougher and more engaging. Waltz also changes gears as Danny gets more deadly, giving the character the sort of authority we assume he used to have. It’s a little more hardcore, suggest

We can tell from the framework, along with the score and the opening titles, the kind of movie OLD GUY aspires to be. It wants to remind us of features from a time even before Danny’s heyday, the ‘70s cool antihero bullets and banter showcase. In broad strokes, it’s there, but the details don’t always live up to the apparent ambitions.

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