1 9 5 3. The popular comedy duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy is in decline, so they accept to do a comedy tour through Britain in order to gain attention of a film producer, Miffin, who could finance their next film about Robin Hood. Once there, Laurel and Hardy are taken aback by the shady theater halls they will perform in, and by very few people in the audience. However, with time, more and more people show up, until they are a hit in London and their wives, Lucille and Kitaeva, meet them there. Miffin informs Laurel that he will not be able to secure funds for their film, while Hardy suffers a heart attack. Hardy still manages to perform live on tour, but afterwards he retires.
This biopic about the famous comedy duo Laurel and Hardy is more sad than funny, insisting on a more bitter, ambitious approach to fullfil the drama criteria, though, ironically, it actually works the best when it captures that comedy spirit of the duo in certain scenes on the margins. One of them was their attempt to make a Robin Hood film, called “Rob ‘em Good”, where Laurel planned several jokes, including a one where Hardy cries, so Laurel wanted to put a vase under him, as for his tears to water a plant and make it grow. Another one is presented in practice, such as the hysterical way in which Laurel trips over his own luggage again and again while entering a hotel, with a calm Hardy just waiting at the reception. As thankless as the task was in casting the two iconic title roles, so much did Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly give a run for their money and deliver truly wonderful performances, regardless of the confinement of the thin script. Sadly, the story only captures the final days of the duo (and not their early careers when they were in their heyday), leaving a lot out of the picture, though it did this with an aim to create a theme about transience, embodied in the scenes of the old Laurel and Hardy who sense that their comedy has become dated and they are not needed anymore, that their time is up. In one sequence, they argue (“I loved us.” - “You loved Laurel and Hardy. You never loved me”), while in another Laurel has a realization at a bar about the tragic layer of their characters (“In our movies, we never knew anyone, we only knew each other”), and, as over-dramatic as some of this might sound, they remained more than friends despite their ups and downs, and private problems. One biographer even joked that Laurel’s most successful marriage might have actually been with Ollie. The duo never achieved the enduring ingenuity of H. Lloyd or B. Keaton, but was more accessible to the masses due to their simplicity, and the film gives a worthy homage to them.
Grade:++
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