Just Getting Started movie review (2017)

The seasonal setting opens the door for such sight gags as carolers decked out in Dickensian garb save for being shod in flip flops and someone observing, “Some big balls he’s got” while dangling two sizable round tree ornaments. There is also an opportunity for “flocking” to be used as a euphemism for you-know-what. Shelton seems to think that just the very thought of Christmas spent in the heat of the California desert (actually, Albuquerque, N.M., mostly filling in for tax-break reasons) is a cause for yuletide mirth. While Lipitor is mentioned, the V-word (Viagra) is not. Take that as a blessing since I still haven’t recovered from Robert De Niro’s run-in with the erectile dysfunction drug in “Little Fockers.”

Freeman’s dedicated alpha male and his band of cronies (among them, Joe Pantoliano and comic George Wallace) rule the roost while Duke chases after hot-to-trot hens of a certain age—namely, Elizabeth Ashley, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Glenne Headly, who died in June at age 62. Sadly, her last film role involves her standing on a ladder and having Freeman lasciviously admire her buxom form—which would be kind of creepy even before the media began keeping a post-Weinstein tally of powerful men recently accused of sexual harassment. 

Matters look up briefly once cowboy Leo, in the form of Jones, sashays into town and challenges Duke at his own games—which include golf, chess, ping pong, bench pressing and doing the limbo. But when Rene Russo’s Suzie shows up, Leo’s heart skips a beat and soon enough Duke is vying for her affections as well. Turns out this trio are all hiding something. So is the movie, as it awkwardly evolves from being a horny oldsters on the loose caper to a macho one-upmanship contest and, finally, a crime film about foiling a mob hit beset with dreary car chases, a literal snooze-fest stakeout, a rather tame cobra stuck in a golf bag and perhaps one of the least-exciting bomb explosions ever captured on film.