Based on a 1976 Broadway play, director Jeff Hare's Checking Out isn't hard to take, especially considering the caliber of the performers, including veteran ham bone Peter Falk. But with its artificially peppy, "too smart to live" dialogue, a trite, confused central story, and quite a few performances calibrated not to the back row, but to Sardi's across the street, Checking Out isn't all that easy to take, either.

Morris Applebaum (Peter Falk), a renowned Jewish Shakespearian actor approaching his 90th birthday, decides that enough is enough; he's lived a good life, with many friends and many accomplishments, and he wants to "check out" before the inevitable physical breakdown. Having lost his beloved wife, Morris believes it's time to bow out gracefully. Sending invitations for a party/suicide to his three children, Morris wants to meet this final journey the way he's lived his life: on his terms, and with joy in his heart. Once they receive their invitations, his children rush to New York City to confront him. Dr. Ted Applebaum (David Paymer), a stiff, mild-mannered psychotherapist from California, suffers from memories of his two other siblings teasing and making fun of him. Barry Apple (Judge Reinhold), who now goes by the last name of "Apple" to keep his Jewish heritage under wraps, is a struggling car dealer in Rhode Island with a loud wife and two fractious teenagers. And Flo Applebaum (Laura San Giacomo) is a nervous, lonely, single writer working in Hollywood.

Once in Morris' apartment, they try repeatedly to understand Morris' wish to die - which proves difficult because he's always taking off. When they fear he may be serious about his suicide plan, Ted seeks professional help for his father: Dr. Sheldon Henney (Jeffrey D. Sams), an African-American therapist that Morris delights in finding out is also Jewish. This bond, however, won't stop Morris from giving the group the slip, and as the family and Dr. Henney try to track Morris down, Morris intends to keep his promise to himself. Will Morris' family be able to convince him that life is still worth living?

Adapted by Richard Marcus from voice talent Allen Swift's 1976 Broadway play of the same name, Checking Out unfortunately plays out all too closely to a staged work. It can be extremely difficult to soften the "stage ring" of overtly theatrical lines, and when a work so obviously apes a distinctive voice like Neil Simon, the task can be even greater. Unfortunately, screenwriter Marcus and director Hare can't get us to feel that any of the dialogue flows organically from the characters. It's all set-ups and zingers, with an unrestricted flow of one-liners that only occur on sitcoms and, well...Neil Simon plays. It doesn't help that some of the performances are a tad overemphatic. I'm a huge Peter Falk fan, but I'm rather surprised he was cast for this particular part. Only 77 when Checking Out was shot, he looks and acts even younger than that, and utterly fails to convince us that he's remotely close to 90 years old. Even worse, and because of the inherently false structure of the play and the superficiality of the screenplay, I never once believed the central plot point that Falk truly wanted to kill himself. There wasn't one scene, one bit of business, or one line reading, that convinced me that this character really and truly wanted to commit suicide. And if you don't have that, you don't have a movie that's believable. You have pleasant, if totally artificial, sitcom.

Other performances and characters fail to work, as well, in Checking Out. San Giacomo and Paymer probably come closest to putting forth real characters, but Reinhold and Sams (in a character that's obviously tacked on with little internal logic to the play/film) have difficulty getting up a head of steam. Reinhold's two children here embody all the requisite, annoyingly "cute" characteristics that movie people like to think all kids follow, including surliness, apathy, and self-centeredness; they're strictly sitcom stereotypes and fail to jell as believable characters. There's also a cameo appearance by Gavin MacLeod as a "loveably snooty" doorman that utterly fails to work. Too much of the direction by Jeff Hare (boy, he loves his dolly shots) encourages these good actors to play to the stalls, instead of to us, the movie audience. And little is done to straighten out messy script construction that constantly has Falk "escaping" somewhere. It's never a believable device, and the various "chase scenes" are alternately incoherent or lackadaisical. Most times, when a play has a short run, it's for a reason. Something's wrong either with the play's construction or theme, or with the direction and performances. Checking Out didn't work on the boards in 1976, and it doesn't work on movie screens in 2005.

The DVD:

The Video:
The 1.85:1 unenhanced widescreen image for Checking Out is clear and sharp, with good, solid, bright colors.

The Audio:
There's an audio option for a Dolby Digital 5.1 stereo track, but honestly, there's not much need for it in this largely dialogue driven play/film. The 2.0 is entirely adequate.

The Extras:
There's a trailer for Checking Out, as well as a couple of other titles offered by the distributor.

Final Thoughts:
With terrific performers like these, it's too bad that Checking Out wasn't a better film. But a sub-par Neil Simon knock-off isn't going to yield much besides some rim-shot zingers and some phoney emoting. If you need to see everything Peter Falk is in, I suppose you could rent Checking Out; it won't kill you. But for all others, skip it, and rent a Neil Simon comedy.