Old Dogs 2009

Dan Rayburn and Charlie Reed are longtime friends who run a small but ambitious sports marketing firm. Seven years earlier, Dan was briefly married to Vicki. In the present, Vicki resurfaces with life-changing news: their marriage produced twins, Zach and Emily, and she is facing jail for her environmental activism. She asks Dan to care for the children while she serves her sentence. Dan agrees, but only if Charlie helps, since neither of them has parenting experience. To complicate matters, they must also push through a major deal with a Japanese company.

Their attempts at guardianship are well-meaning but awkward, full of small

missteps and comic confusion. An overnight camp instructor even misreads the situation, thinking that Dan and Charlie are homosexual partners. The chaos intensifies when the kids accidentally spill Charlie’s and Dan’s prescriptions and scramble to replace them, resulting in unexpected side effects for both men.

To help Dan connect with the children, Charlie enlists his friend Jimmy Lunchbox, a famous children’s entertainer. Jimmy outfits Dan and Charlie in motion-controlled puppet suits for a whimsical tea party with Dan’s daughter. The suits malfunction, yet Dan speaks from the heart and wins Emily over.

Vicki returns home, and Dan and Charlie decide to devote more time to the kids, sending their junior associate Craig to Tokyo to push the business deal while they focus on family. When they learn Craig has gone missing, they rush to Tokyo to find him.

In Tokyo, Dan realizes he truly wants to be a good father and leaves the meeting without sealing the deal. Craig returns from Tokyo, and they hurry back to Vermont for the kids’ birthday party. They miss a key chance to enter the Burlington Zoo on time and end up breaking in, meeting an affectionate gorilla and facing hostile penguins along the way.

Dan carves out a moment to save the day by hiring a birthday performer who arrives on a jet pack, then flies into the party and wins back his kids’ affection. A year later, Dan and Vicki are back together, Charlie is married, and Craig has become an informal, uncle-like presence to Zach and Emily.