Date Night

I have been pretty excited for the new Tina Fey and Steve Carell movie Date Night. I absolutely love Tina Fey as Liz Lemon on the TV show 30 Rock and Steve Carell was funny in movies such as Bruce Almighty and Anchorman. (No, I don’t think that The Office is funny. At all.) So, I was really excited at the prospect of seeing Fey and Carell in a Rom-Com together.  Date Night begins and we meet Phil and Claire Foster (Carell and Fey) who are married with 2 kids. They have the kind of kids that jump in bed at the ungodly hour of 4:45am to wake them up every morning and this is how their days usually start. They have good careers and even have date nights and are in a book club together where Phil is the only man. You can tell they love one another but when they find out that their 2 friends, played by Kristen Wiig and Mark Ruffalo, are divorcing they start to doubt their own marriage. Maybe they aren’t as happy as they thought.

Phil, being the good guy that he is, wants to spice things up so Claire and Phil go off into the city of Manhattan for a real date where they don’t talk about kids and what they have to do next week but just have a fun night.  The shenanigans start when Phil decides to take the Tripplehorn’s reservation at the restaurant because 1) The host was being a dick and 2) What’s the harm in taking the reservation? I mean, the Tripplehorn’s weren’t even there, right? So, of course the Tripplehorns are actually some skuzzy couple that have a flash drive that has some super bad secret information on it are holding it as blackmail. And a couple of goons mistake Phil and Claire as the Tripplehorns because they are took their reservation. Get it? Yeah. So, comedy ensues.

The first real laugh didn’t come until pretty far in but it was really great visual comedy that went for the gold. Of course the Foster’s first idea is to go to the police to report everything that has happened. The detective they speak with played by Taraji P. Henson (Smokin’ Aces and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) is more taken aback because they took someone’s reservation than by the fact that they were held at gun point. The whole “taking someone’s reservation” joke comes up a couple of times and it’s pretty funny each time.  That’s a pretty good running gag. Anyway, the Foster’s then recognize the goons in the police station and realize that they are actually cops. So, now they can’t trust anyone and have to use their own wits to get them out of this predicament. Along the journey, which I have to admit, has some slow parts, they meet a hot black-ops guy, played by Mark Walberg (Four Brothers and Max Payne), who won’t put on a shirt to save his life. They meet the skuzzy couple the bad cops are after played by James Franco (Flyboys ) and Mila Kunis (Max Payne and Forgetting Sarah Marshall). They absolutely steal the scene when on screen. What the what?! When the heck did James Franco get so damn funny? Yes, he was hilarious in Pineapple Express and he’s pretty hilair in General Hospital. We need more James Franco in just about everything I think. Put Franco in The Office and then it might be funny. That’s all I’m saying. Franco makes it better.  Ahem.

Tina Fey, for me, is the funniest and smartest woman on the planet right now. She is going to be remembered (hopefully, I mean, if she doesn’t screw it up somehow) along with Betty White, Lucille Ball, and even other SNLers like Jane Curtin and Gilda Radner. I can’t say that I liked Mean Girls or even thought Baby Momma was funny (who thought that was funny?)  but the woman’s got something else that makes 30 Rock the funniest show on TV since Seinfeld. I did happen to catch her on SNL this past Saturday night and of course the whole show is a hit and miss type of thing but the skit with her as a teacher fantasizing about stupid Justin Beiber was pretty funny. I love it when she dances! Anyway, I wanted to give her props for what she has brought to television and to comedy in general because she’s great! Steve Carell, too- blah blah blah. I guess. Whatever.

But really Fey and Carell had a lot of good chemistry in Date Night and I don’t  think that was due to the directing. There were a couple of scenes where this movie actually needed a director. You know, like when one car runs into another car and they get fused together at the bumper so they drive around town like that trying to get away from the bad guys. Yeah, you need a director for that type of thing but for the most part this movie could have directed itself. The actors are all good enough and the dialogue is funny so what else do you need? Certainly not the director of Night at the Museum and Cheaper by the Dozen, Shawn Levy.  Date Night is cute, pretty funny but barely directed. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see it though. I’d actually recommend that you see it especially if you’re looking for a good hearted, solid comedy right now. I mean, I guess you could go laugh at Clash of the Titans or something like that but the rest of the audience would probably throw shoes at you.

Recent posts by Desiree

• The Joneses - April 26th, 2010
• Death at a Funeral (2010) - April 19th, 2010
• How to Train Your Dragon - March 29th, 2010
• Newsworthy: "Wizard of Oz" on the Silver Screen - March 16th, 2010
• Shutter Island - February 22nd, 2010

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