Stand Up Guys
Lionsgate | Release Date: December 14, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
41
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
9
Negative:
16
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 31, 2013
The thing most people will take away from Stand Up Guys is that it contains Al Pacino's best performance in years. So if you don't think Al Pacino still has it in him, this is a welcome chance to be proved wrong. But here's something interesting. Stand Up Guys also contains Christopher Walken's best performance in years. In addition, the film is extraordinarily well cast, and the acting, even in the smaller roles, is more than noteworthy. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertJan 30, 2013
Sometimes it's all about the casting. The notice of a screening came around, I read the names Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin, and it didn't matter in a way what the movie was about - although it didn't hurt that it was a crime movie. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDuane ByrgeDec 4, 2012
Stand Up Guys never wobbles into maudlin or cheap-n-easy sentimentality. It is an entertaining yet sobering portrayal of not-so-wise guys who do not go gently into a no-good night. Read full review
70
VarietyAlissa SimonDec 4, 2012
Veering between buddy movie and action-thriller, Stand Up Guys is a mildly raunchy, modestly entertaining geriatric comedy. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanJan 30, 2013
Stand Up Guys reminds you that these three are still way too good to collapse into shticky self-parody, even when they're in a movie that's practically begging them to. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversFeb 1, 2013
Some actors don't need top-shelf material. Just the pleasure of their company is enough. And so Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin turn the insubstantial Stand Up Guys into solid entertainment. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineAbhimanyu DasDec 13, 2012
Fails to plumb the dramatic depths of its setups, but every now and then the actors pick up the slack, filling in the blanks with three decades's worth of mythic resonance. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawJun 29, 2013
Some nice touches, though it needs to be indulged. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottFeb 1, 2013
Stand Up Guys becomes something not only enjoyable but memorable and emotionally layered at the same time. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 31, 2013
Pacino, long ago having given up subtlety for bombast, continues along that path here, but he's still fun to watch. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyDec 13, 2012
While the action is brisk, the film never feels in a hurry. Walken and Pacino amble through their paces. Arkin ups the adrenaline any time he's around, and he is not around quite enough. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen HoldenDec 13, 2012
Most of the modest pleasures are in the ways the men expertly play off one another and invest their shallow characters with more depth than any filmmaker could reasonably expect. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 31, 2013
It's Walken who grounds every scene with the kind of watchful honesty that has become his brand in late-career. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJan 31, 2013
Elegiac and corny and not really convincing on any level (especially when it comes to its treatment of women - be they hookers, or waitresses, or girls on the town), Stand Up Guys nonetheless holds some fascination just for the off-the-charts affectedness of Pacino's performance. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreJan 30, 2013
The central premise is a half-hearted retread. And the gags come from a score of earlier films and sitcoms. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanDec 13, 2012
The script is undernourished, the supporting characters - including a horribly miscast Lucy Punch - ill-conceived, and Val increasingly hard to take. But when the movie ended, I wanted to watch Walken all over again. Read full review
38
USA TodayScott BowlesJan 31, 2013
It's been a long time since a movie wasted as much talent as Stand Up Guys, a film that aims to be a geezer "Goodfellas" but whose execution is a misfire. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 31, 2013
We get it: Stand Up Guys is supposed to be cutesy criminal magic realism. But Stevens, an actor turned director, never finds the right vibe, and the movie's genuinely creepy misogyny sours the attempts to go sentimental in the final act. Read full review
38
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJan 31, 2013
Dare we say it? Even the acting is atrocious, with pop-eyed Pacino chewing the scenery like a geezer gumming his oatmeal. Read full review
33
The PlaylistGabe ToroJan 29, 2013
It's like stocking a team with proven performers and hoping that everything else will work itself out at the end, including a rickety script, indifferent direction, and a plot that pretends its final act is anything other than a cliché-hugging inevitability. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 31, 2013
It's long on Viagra jokes and whorehouse scenes, and comes up short on plausibility. Read full review
30
NPRScott TobiasJan 31, 2013
Stevens wants to honor the living legends who have miraculously agreed to appear in his movie, but after spending a full hour treating their characters like cartoons, the about-face into heartfelt slop lacks the necessary gravitas. Read full review
30
TimeMary PolsJan 31, 2013
A buddy movie that limps along, pausing for breath and pulse checks like a geriatric dutifully fulfilling doctor's orders to get some exercise. Read full review
30
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlDec 11, 2012
But by the end, the feeling the movie inspires isn't suspense but relief: Thank God that the producers behind "Grumpy Old Men" and "The Sunshine Boys" didn't yet have Viagra to joke about. Read full review
25
Portland OregonianMarc MohanJan 31, 2013
It's often said that actors with distinctive vocal styles could compellingly read the phone book -- in this case, it would absolutely be a more entertaining hour-and-a-half. Read full review
25
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJan 31, 2013
An excruciating and melodramatic comedy. Read full review
25
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 31, 2013
Arkin in particular can barely hide his lack of enthusiasm for the material. Some of the looks he shoots his co-stars appear to contain a secret code of some kind, deciphered as: 'Well, at least I'm in 'Argo.'" Read full review
25
The A.V. ClubNathan RabinJan 30, 2013
The leads here aren't the only element of the film that's past its prime. Read full review
25
New York PostKyle SmithDec 13, 2012
Painful, misshapen and a little gross. It's an enlarged prostate of a movie. Read full review
20
Total FilmCurtis WoloschukJun 15, 2013
Most ‘one crazy night’ movies (from After Hours to Superbad) thrive on a sense of escalation, but Stand Up Guys only seems to lower the stakes as it stumbles tediously on. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleLeah ChurnerJan 30, 2013
Does anyone, young or old, wish to see a 72-year-old Pacino sporting spiky hair and goatee, hollering in his "Tony Montana" voice about having a boner? Is he in a contest with Mick Jagger to see who can keep up the wild-man shtick into the triple digits? Read full review
20
Time OutKeith UhlichDec 11, 2012
This moronically unfunny gangster comedy fluctuates wildly between the lowest-of-low humor and pity-the-aged-man pathos, and offers further evidence that the best days are behind its iconic cast members. Read full review
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