Main Cast: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Christine Baranski, Barnard Hughes, Jonathan Silverman
Release Year: 1998
Country: US
Run Time: 96 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
Howard Deutch directed this sequel to the The Odd Couple (1968), originally adapted from the 1965 Broadway comedy by Neil Simon. Thirty years later, Felix Ungar (Jack Lemmon) and retired sportswriter Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau) meet at LAX and drive a rental car across the desert to attend the wedding of Oscar's son Brucey (Jonathan Silverman) to Felix's daughter Hannah (Lisa Waltz), but a breakdown leaves them stranded at some distance from the main highways where they are sprayed by a cropduster and hang out with two flirtatious women (Christine Baranski, Jean Smart) in a small-town bar before getting a lift from slow-driving elderly Beaumont (Barnard Hughes), eventually arriving at the wedding. Composer Alan Silvestri brings in Neal Hefti's original theme from the 1968 film, music also featured in ABC's 1970-75 TV series with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. Another Odd Couple sequel is the TV movie The Odd Couple: Together Again (CBS, 1993, repeated July 1997), starring Randall and Klugman; it also involved the wedding of Felix's daughter. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
Lisa Jensen - Costume Designer, Jeff Knipp - First Assistant Director, Howard Deutch - Director, Seth Flaum - Editor, Alan Silvestri - Composer (Music Score), Dan Bishop - Production Designer, Jamie Anderson - Cinematographer, Robert W. Cort - Producer, David Madden - Producer, Neil Simon - Producer, Lee Orloff - Sound/Sound Designer, Neil Simon - Screenwriter, Tom Perry - Re-Recording Mixer, Elizabeth Shelton - Assistant Costumer Designer
It's been seventeen years (the amount of time between the end of the TV series and this movie) since Oscar and Felix saw each other. Oscar, still a compulsive gambler and untidy slob, is now retired and living in Sarasota, Florida; Felix is still in New York. One day, Oscar is called by his son Brucey (Jonathan Silverman) to invite him to his wedding to Felix's daughter Hannah (Lisa Waltz) the following Sunday in California.
Oscar and Felix meet at Los Angeles International Airport and within seconds are at odds with one another. They take a rental car to San Malina for the wedding. But the trip develops into an odyssey, starting with Oscar forgetting Felix's suitcase at the car rental station, and including the complete loss of the written directions to San Malina when Oscar's cigar ash burns them. They lose their way and end up on a small road in the desert; the car rolls off a cliff and catches fire. If that were not enough, they get arrested several times by the local police, first for driving a truck carrying illegal Mexican immigrants, and then for being in a car with a dead man.
Exhausted and believing that they'll never get to the wedding, they get arrested yet again for consorting with armed revenge-hungry rednecks. Released and driven to the local airport by the police, who are only too pleased to be rid of them. The Rednecks are doing a month in jail for using fire arms on a public vehicle for the 5th time. Felix and Oscar make it to the wedding, but not before Felix meets the "one and only" woman on the airplane.
They arrive to find that Brucey is having second thoughts about the wedding due to his parents bad history with marriage, and after arguing with their ex-spouses, Felix and Oscar immediately take sides. But all is resolved and the wedding takes place as planned.
After the wedding. Felix and Oscar go to bed for the night. The next morning Felix and Felice fly on one flight as Oscar flies to Sarasota. Oscar is back at home with his poker friends talking about the wedding. When all of a sudden the door bell rings. Its Felix moving to Florida. Felix and Felice are no longer together and Felix plans to move in with Oscar until he finds his own place. Oscar said no at first but when Felix started to leave Oscar changed his mind and was okay with Felix temporarily living with him. As long as Felix didn't start constantly cleaning up the apartment.
The film holds the record for time between sequels (thirty years) while containing the original cast.
When Oscar and Felix are about to make their third and final run-in with the police, the footage of the police forcing them to stop their car is actually from their first arrest, used again in this scene for some reason.
