Stan & Ollie (Jon S. Baird)

[Ivan Drago]

IMDB / Wiki

[Ivan Drago]

My thoughts.

[Grouchy]

Wow, this is excellent. In a year of disparagingly bad biopics Baird manages to make an emotional movie about two comedians who were far from our image of the larger than life genius and closer to the struggles of the day-to-day workman of the comedy trade. I'm a huge fan of Laurel and Hardy and have always considered them underrated by contemporary film buffs in comparison to Chaplin, Keaton or Lloyd, and many moments I've read about of their personal lives (including the highly emotional Ireland reception) are perfectly brought to life here. I enjoyed the choice of making the bulk of the movie about their twilight years and I think their relationship is represented in a manner that rings genuine. It's also the two central performances that make this a winner - Coogan is usually great but I think he's never been better and Reilly manages to act his ass off under kilos of prosthetic make-up.

[Ivan Drago]

Yeah, this is getting better in retrospect for me. The ending hit even harder on the second watch.