Robert De Niro has been playing cops, thugs and other volatile types so long it’s easy to forget the actor is now 66 years old.

“Everybody’s Fine,” which played recently at the Starz Denver Film Festival and opens wide Dec. 4 , hands De Niro that rare, age-appropriate, role.

No wise guy smirks. No expertly delivered whackings. And no, “you tawkin’ to me?” moments.

He’s just a father who misses his kids so much he puts his delicate health on the line to visit them.

The new film begins with great promise and offers the kind of quiet meditation on aging infrequently seen these days.

But the final moments have all the subtlety of a Hallmark card – one that plays a merry tune when opened.

“Everybody’s Fine” casts De Niro as Frank, a lonely widower who takes action when all four of his children bail out on his invitation to join him for a family reunion.

He decides to visit them instead, one at a time, even though his doctor warns him against putting too much stress on his weakened lungs.

The film provides De Niro with offspring who look nothing like the “Raging Bull” star. They must all take after their late mama.

Drew Barrymore plays Rosie, a Vegas dancer whose happy life is just a ruse. Kate Beckinsale’s Amy is another of the actress’ cold fish creations. Sam Rockwell’s Robert bangs a drum in a traveling orchestra even though he dreams of conducting.

Suffice to say the lines of communication between family members have been down ever since Frank’s wife passed, and no one even knows where the fourth sibling is.

De Niro channels his trademark ferocity to make Frank’s frustrations real and relatable. He goes from place to place dragging a suitcase behind him, its squeaky wheels just as intrusive as his line of questioning toward his children.

It’s the kind of quiet performance that doesn’t get Oscar buzz or critical acclaim. And that’s a shame.

Writer/director Kirk Jones spreads warm and funny lines throughout the early sequences, and details the loneliness of Frank’s country wide quest in a way that makes him enormously appealing – and more than a little sad.

Jones stumbles with a few cinematic gambles, like having Frank address his brood about their lies even though, on screen, they appear as children.

And while the movie offers an indie-style approach to storytelling, with solemn takes and a keen eye toward the mundane, the final 20 minutes ladles on the schmaltz – and the predictability.

“Everybody’s Fine” makes us see De Niro in a new light, but the film eventually transforms into a family dramedy we’ve seen so many times before.

(Photo: Kate Beckinsale as Amy and Robert De Niro as Frank in “Everybody’s Fine.” Photo Credit: Abbot Genser/Miramax Film Corp.)

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There’s only one Robert De Niro.

So why do people keep telling writer/director Kirk Jones that the main character in his new movie, played by the acting legend, reminds them of their own father?

“Everybody’s Fine” casts De Niro as a befuddled widower trying to reconnect with his four children.

He wears an out of style jacket, drags a heavy suitcase wherever he goes and never seems to say the right thing to his increasingly estranged children.

Jones tells WWTW De Niro micro-managed the part of Frank until every tiny gesture rang true.

“Frank is a simple man, a blue collar worker. On paper, it’s not that interesting. De Niro brought that alive,” Jones says.

The British director behind “Waking Ned Devine” and “Nanny McPhee” says he never met another actor who prepared as thoroughly as De Niro.

The script the actor worked from had been written on across every empty space, filled with his notes about the dialog, the action and ways he could refine Frank’s mannerisms.

“It sounds like an overcooked performance,” he says. But those little notes – the way he would touch an envelope or stroke his on-screen child’s face – enriched the character.

“When they come together as a whole they represent something really powerful,” he says.

Of course, Jones the screenwriter had some say in making Frank a full-bodied creation. The Brit admits he got plenty of inspiration from his own father, especially the sequences in which Frank clumsily takes pictures of his children at inopportune times.

But De Niro, 66, almost passed on making “Everybody’s Fine.”

“He was attracted to the project right from the start,“ Jones says. But the writer/director started getting nervous when De Niro showed some trepidation.

“He said, ‘you know, maybe I should be seven years older,‘” Jones recalls. “In his mind there was some question about taking a role where he’s so vulnerable and honest about his age.”

“Everybody’s Fine” is a remake of a 1990 Italian film made by a British director overseeing an American cast.

“I don’t think it’s any different for an American family, or a British family or Italian family,“ he says. “I’d like to try to make films with universal films.”

And he suspects families of many cultures have a hard time communicating.

“Whenever you need a favor from your dad you go to your mom first,” he says. “Sometimes we’re more comfortable talking to a friend over a beer than with those closest to us.”

Jones hopes his new film can connect with audiences even though there are no car chases or wacky hijinks, and parts of the film are told with a patient, European sensibility.

It seemed to work with “Waking Ned Divine.”

“It was a very small film with no recognizable stars in the cast and set in the UK. I was thrilled when I came over here [to the U.S.] to see the reception,” he says. “It proved to me you can make a small, sensitive film … without the sex, violence and special effects.”

“Everybody’s Fine” opens nationwide Dec. 4.

(Photo: Robert De Niro plays a widower trying to stay close to his daughter – Drew Barrymore – in “Everybody’s Fine.”/Miramax Films)

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It’s the ultimate parlor trick for an actor – gain or lose weight for an important role.

It gives you instant street cred, ups your chances for an Oscar and usually yields oodles of extra publicity.

But not all weight fluctuating roles are created equal. Here’s WWTW’s choices for the best “weighty” performances.

• Christian Bale, “The Machinist” - Anyone can pack on a few pounds for a role, but Bale went one step further. He lost weight. A lot. The result? A walking cadaver that made “The Machinist” a frightening spectacle.
• Robert De Niro, “Raging Bull” – The gold standard, and one that would top the list if it weren’t for Bale’s skeletal makeover.
• Dennis Quaid, “Wyatt Earp” – Quaid didn’t go the Full Bale, but his weight loss made his take on Doc Holliday a memorable one.
• Charlize Theron, “Monster” – Theron earned her Oscar the hard way … by completely submerging her eye-popping beauty by shaving her eyebrows and gaining weight. All the cosmetic changes set the stage for her best performance of a still young career.
• Tom Hanks, “Cast Away” – The Oscar winner took time off during the shoot to change his weight to fit the character … and the fantastical story. We already knew Hanks was a great actor, but “Cast Away” showed he could carry a movie all by himself.

(Photo: Christian Bale looks positively gaunt, and it’s no special effect, in “The Machinist.”)

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Some movies do so much more than entertain – they epitomize the look, the sound … the feel of an era.

Here are my choices for the films that evoke their time and place. Discuss:

• The 50s: “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955): James Dean, dated hipster dialogue and teens whose level of malevolence seems quaint by today’s standards
• The 60s: “The Graduate” (1967): Earns its place here just for the Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack alone. But Benjamin Braddock’s malaise echoed the turbulent ’60s in a less obvious but equally vital way as “Easy Rider” would do two years later.

• The 70s: “Taxi Driver” (1976): The prime example of the auteur-driving decade, and De Niro was clearly in the driver’s seat for these 10 artful years.
• The 80s: “Beverly Hills Cop” (1984): Eddie Murphy’s cop comedy epitomized the era’s fast-talking, hard charging action movies. The synth soundtrack was duplicated on every other ’80s movie thereafter.
• The 90s: “Pulp Fiction”: Quentin Tarantino’s finest hour inspired a generation of young, less talented filmmakers and opened up mainstream cinema to non-linear storytelling.

(Hat Tip: Daggnabbit)

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Barry Levinson of “Good Morning, Vietnam” fame hasn’t directed a quality film in ages. Robert De Niro needs a role which doesn’t insult his intelligence – or our patience with his greatness.

Both get roughly what they were hoping for from “What Just Happened,” a new Hollywood satire that scorches the industry.

De Niro stars as Ben, a successful film producer facing calamities in both his personal and professional lives. He’s negotiating a painful divorce from his second wife (Robin Wright Penn) and trying to avoid a lawsuit from breaking out over his newest film.

The movie’s star (Bruce Willis, playing a egotistical version of himself) won’t shave his scruffy beard or lose weight for the role, and the financial players insist he play by their rules.

“What Just Happened” delights in detailing the insecurities of both key Hollywood players and the minions who make it all happen. And De Niro’s Ben remains the calm center in a very surreal storm no matter how miserable he becomes. He’s unflappable, but audiences can see his soul slipping away as the story progresses.

That’s why it’s a shame that the final reel itself feels so … soulless. Some problems wrap up in a tidy fashion, others are left to linger in our imaginations, but none resonate the way the film’s best scenes do.

De Niro, his hair longer than we’ve seen it recently, is both virile and hamstrung as Ben, and it’s his best performance in ages.

“What Just Happened” likely won’t attract much attention in theaters. Hollywood satires are hardly box office catnip. But it’s good to know two old pros still have the ability to create movies that can stand near, if not up, to their previous productions.

(Photo: Robert De Niro plays an addled producer looking for a little, ahem, stress relief in “What Just Happened.”)

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Good news! The new Robert De Niro/Al Pacino film doesn’t require audiences to hold their collective noses like Pacino’s recent debacle, “88 Minutes.”

Not much other good news to report on “Righteous Kill,” the first full-on teaming of the screen legends.

Hard to say why the duo chose such a disposable cop caper for their overdue co-starring vehicle.

It’s less deep than your average “Law & Order” episode, and “Kill’s” clumsy twist feels like watching a magician with an Ace of Spades dangling from his sleeve.

“Kill” kicks off with a blast of testosterone – heavy rock music underscores our leads pumping lead into shooting targets and pumping iron in an old-school gym.

OK, we get it. The boys aren’t ready for retirement just yet. Now start the story.

A serial killer with a penchant for poetry is rubbing out the Big Apple’s more notorious scum. It’s up to detectives Turk (De Niro) and Rooster (Pacino) to figure out who’s to blame.

Yes, their names are Turk and Rooster.

The veteran cops don’t do a ton of actual police work. They’re too busy making lame “Brady Bunch” jokes and teasing fellow cop Carla Gugino, who ’s dating Turk and has an affinity for rough sex. The pair undergo psychological counseling after one sting operation disintegrates, but the sequences exist primarily to let the officers riff on just how silly the whole process is.

Mid-film, someone suggests, “it’s gotta be a cop” responsible for the killings, and the entire investigation shifts gears. No rhyme, little reason. And since the cast is relatively small, the whodunnit is seriously exposed.

The film legends treat “Kill” like a vanity project, or at least a way to deny Father Time. A brief sex scene between De Niro and Gugino would be superfluous, if not for the suspicion the filmmakers want us to know the aging lion can still roar.

Director Jon Avnet, the man responsible for “88 Minutes,“ falls back on his gimmicky screen tics like needless slow motion shots and jittery cuts. But mostly he zooms too close into our aging stars faces, although it’s hard to blame him. Those mugs are the film’s best assets.

It’s sad to see two actors indelibly linked to New York in a film where the Big Apple plays such a miniscule part. No eccentric New York types, no atmospheric shots of the city in all its fractured glory. It’s as if this story could have been told in any city across the U.S.

What a waste.

The same can be said of “Righteous Kill,” a perfunctory thriller which squanders the chance to see two acting icons heat up the screen at the same time.

(Photo: Robert De Niro and Al Pacino appear together on screen for the first time since 1995’s “Heat” in the new cop thriller “Righteous Kill.”)

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