Glad I read the book first, and even again before watching the movie.
The movie was quite a bit disjointed from the book.
The problem was Nolte didn't seem like an out of shape Katz, he seemed like just an old Katz.
Redford waited way too long to put this to film, at least with these two old timers. Younger actors might have greatly helped bring out the funny parts of the book.
These guys were simply too old.
I disgree. They fact they were old made it even more enjoyable and funny to me.
shareCan the actors really do it in real life? If they can then they absolutely are not too old to play characters that can.
The best argument against them doing it is if they inspired old people to do something that killed them. If it inspired old people to get into shape then it would be a mistake to use younger people.
Looking at the heading of your post, at first I thought your post was just an ugly expression of ageism. But after reading it, I think you're angst is simply that the film's characters were older than the book's characters were. At least I'm hoping so since that would be fairly stupid and shortsighted on your part since with any luck you'll be old someday and might want to try something like that yourself.
shareIf you read the book you'll know that age had no factor, it was being out of shape.
In watching the movie you'd have to be blind to not see Katz and his problems were 90% age related.
The characters in the book were probably 40 years younger than these actors.
Well then help me here, your post is entitled: "These guys were way too old to make this entertaining" and yet in reply, you've just said: "If you read the book you'll know that age had no factor, it was being out of shape."
All things considered, why was the movie not entertaining due to how old "these guys" were?
Did you read the book?
shareInteresting that my question was met not with an answer but another question.
No, I did not read the book. It's not lost on me that you feel less enthused about the movie for having read the book. We've all been let down at times whenever books we've enjoyed reading get made into movies. I re-read the things that you've said above and have a better understanding of what I think disappoints you about the movie. For me, and I think a lot of people who haven't read the book yet, the movie was entertaining regardless of Redford's and Nolte's ages.
I agree they were too old, especially since Bryson and Katz were in their 40s when they actually hiked the trail.
shareThe film was optioned in 98 and Paul Newman was supposed to play Katz. He was diagnosed with cancer and died, leading to nolte replacing him and production being delayed by a really long time.
I thought it worked as an old dude buddy comedy. (And I've read the book multiple times)