As a kid growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, Saturdays were all about sport, namely footy and cricket depending on the season, however if it was a rare wet day in WA you could catch a movie on the old black and white TV.

Elvis, westerns with John Wayne, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis and my personal favourite The 3 Stooges were all on show along with Laurel and Hardy movies from the 1930’s. Masters of slapstick and vaudeville, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were a comedic match in heaven and as the film Stan & Ollie clearly states in the beginning, they were the biggest movie stars of their time.

The movie starts with the pair at the top of their game in 1937 and the opening sequence takes us from a dressing room to their current movie set. In this 15 minutes or so you gain a sense of where they have come from and where they are headed. As informative as it was I felt the whole sequence was a bit lazy from a screen writing perspective but that would be nit picking.

You are then transported forward to 1953 where Stan & Ollie are embarking on a comeback theatre tour of the UK organised by a shifty promoter brilliantly played by UK actor Rufus Jones. What starts out bleakly, soon turns into a triumph but you don’t get a sense of cliché throughout the journey.

The introduction of the wives coming over from the US is fantastic and both give excellent performances particularly Ollie’s wife Lucille, played by the brilliant Scottish actress Shirley Henderson.

At the end of the day it’s the relationship between the 2 stars that’s important and both characters are superbly played by Steve Coogan as Stan and John C Reilly as Ollie.

Coogan has a long history of playing weird and wonderful comedic characters, so stepping into the role of Stan must have been reasonably seamless I would imagine. If you’re not familiar with Coogan’s work before motion pictures, get a hold of his Alan Partridge Show period and witness some of the most intelligent and cringeworthy comedy of the early 2000’s. ABC2 is currently showing Alan Partridge 10 minute vignettes on Friday nights that have Alan at his narcissistic best doing his show on a Norwich radio station.

Its John C Reilly’s performance that really shines as Ollie. Virtually unrecognisable as the obese Hardy, he delivers a sensational interpretation, bringing out all those little nuances and facial expressions I remember all those years ago that made me laugh so much. This effort from Reilly is actually a form of redemption after a number of poor decisions he has made over the last few years with his choice of movies. He’s a very good actor and this should reinstate him with his peers, and leave behind the memory of shockers like “Holmes and Watson”!

Like most good biopics these days, the end credits are accompanied by actual footage and still photographs of Stan & Ollie that relate to what you’ve just seen in the film and what touching scenes they are. It’s a true love story.

Stan and Ollie takes you back to a time when performers entertained without any special effects and relied purely on physical movement, facial expressions and comic timing. What these guys did along with contemporaries such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton was extraordinary and they inspired other greats of slapstick such as Abbott & Costello, Martin & Lewis and even our very own legends, Lano & Woodley.

I would love young artists to see films like these but of the dozen or so people in the audience this morning, alas we were all over 50! Never mind. I guess they could always youtube it. 8.5/10