Twilight

Bomb Rating: 

How old is Paul Newman, like 90? For God's sake, he shouldn't be acting. He shouldn't even be breathing.

How old is Paul Newman, like 90? For God's sake, he shouldn't be acting. He shouldn't even be breathing. Nevertheless, director Robert ("Nobody's Fool") Benton has written another movie for him and some other old actors, including Gene Hackman and James Garner. Thus, the title: "Twilight."

Fortunately, because Newman and Hackman look like lab experiments for liver spots, this allows Susan Sarandon to play the sexy wife. Sagging like a cake left uncovered in the refrigerator too long, Sarandon is also in her twilight even though she's thirty years Newman's junior. Just to make sure the audience gets a vision of some tight skin, Benton opens with Jack Ames' daughter, Mel (Reese Witherspoon), peeling off her shirt for no apparent reason, other than to establish her seriousness as an actor - a requirement if you're a woman.

After retrieving Mel from Mexico, former cop and private investigator Harry Ross (Newman) returns to L.A., where he lives with Jack and his wife, Catherine (Sarandon), because Jack is pretty sure that at Harry's advanced age he's not likely to dig into anybody's past, nor is he likely to sleep with Catherine. Naturally, both happen.

Co-written with Richard Russo, who wrote the novel "Straight Man," Benton's script feels like it was workshopped by a bunch of first graders. Tired people. Tired story. Obviously, this made some sense to somebody, probably a tired Hollywood executive with prostate problems of his own.

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