3* Review By James R. Holland
Liberal Suburban Couple Goes Into The Big City For A Little Excitement
The only redeeming social value of this romantic/action comedy is to point out the universal need to light up most couple's stale, humdrum marriages. The funniest section of the movie is the end credits as well as the post-end credits so anyone leaving before all the end credits have run will miss most of the show's laughs. Steve Carell and Tina Fey play the lead roles of Phil and Claire Foster. He is a tax attorney and she is a real estate agent and they live quietly in the New Jersey burbs with their two preteen children. They are a very typical and have a stereotypical boring suburban social life.
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They decide to add a little spark to their routine lives by going to a hot new club in NYC called 'Claw.' Since they don't have reservations they are promptly banished to the bar in hope of acquiring a table in less than the 30-day pre-reservation requirement. As they realize how out of their element they are, they notice that another couple is being paged to take their table. After three fruitless calls, the Fosters decide to live dangerously and temporarily change their names and grab the unfilled reservation.
Shortly thereafter two thuggish looking guys ask the tipsy couple to step outside with them for a private conversation. The couple has been mistaken for the people whose reservation they stole. Once out in the dark alley Tina Fey's usual impersonation of Gov. Sarah Palin crashes. When the two thugs pull guns and threaten to kill them, Claire Foster panics and tries to think of something they can do to save themselves. The real Sarah Palin would have known exactly what to do and once the thugs pulled their guns she would no doubt have quickly skinned them both and fed their bones to her pet grizzly bear. But the Tina Fey character is a typical clueless liberal who considers the underbelly of NYC to be a perfectly safe adventure.
Once her reprise of Sarah Palin ends up on the cutting room floor, the rest of the film involves the ridiculous antics of the couple as they try to stay alive and find the missing flash drive the thugs wanted from them. Finding that flash drive means they must find the couple whose identity they have assumed. That colorful couple are named Taste and Whippit and played well by James Franco and Mila Kunis. Like everyone else in the film they too are having marriage/relationship problems.
There is lots of subtle humor that most couples will easily recognize and understand. I particularly liked the totally unrealistic comments from the real estate prospects Mrs. Foster was chauffeuring around showing houses for sale and what another couple was going to do with the income tax refund Mr. Foster said they were due.
Although the theater was more than half full, there was very little laughter from the audience. Most of the humor was of the half-smile, clever kind--not funny enough to produce even a quiet giggle. A few slapstick moves produced the most audience reaction because of the obvious stupidity of the jokes.
Mark Wahlberg plays Holbrooke a former client of Claire Foster who is a security expert for the private industry and various governments. He is very good at what he does (especially black ops) and eventually agrees to help the Fosters locate the mysterious blackmailers that the thugs were looking to find. He and his girlfriend have a couple of the better lines of dialogue even if they have to be translated into subtitles. Taraji P. Henson is Detective Arroyo a smart and honest female detective. William Fichtner who always reminds me of the liberal half (Alan Colmes) of the cable political show 'Hannity and Colmes' does a terrific job portraying sexual pervert District Attorney Frank Crenshaw. Minor roles are provided by Jaye Razor as the Peppermint Hippo Doorman, Nick Kroll as the snobby 'Claw' Maitre D' and Will.i.Am cameos himself. Ray Liotta plays an uncredited role of the underworld owner of the Peppermint Hippo Sex Club. The entire supporting cast is well directed and adds a lot to this comedy. The most intriguing scenes in the motion picture take place at the Peppermint Hippo Sex Club. That X-rated location might have even been more memorable except for the PG-13 Rating this movie sports.
James R. Holland is a film editor, producer, and author--most recently of Adventure Photographer (A Bit of Boston Books/ 2009). Hewrites MOVIE NIGHT REVIEWS exclusively for Basil & Spice. Visit James R. Holland's Writer's Page.
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