DVD Reviews

Take Me Home Tonight

• Rating:
• Director: Michael Dowse
• Starring: Anna Faris
• Details: US/97 minutes (16)

A film with all of the ingredients to be a blast; 80s setting, cracking soundtrack, (mostly) talented cast... everything is here. Yet, somehow, Take Me Home Tonight is a flat, lacklustre comedy. Maybe we've just seen this type of "party film" done so much better in the actual 80s, and even more recently with the underrated Hot Tub Time Machine. Either way, after a hugely promising trailer, this is a disappointment and a blip where there should've been a definitive jump in the career of Topher Grace.
Grace plays twenty something MIT college graduate, Matt. An obviously smart guy, he's unsure of what to do with the rest of his life and has been working at the video store at his local mall while he makes up his mind. When a high school reunion of sorts is due to take place at his twin sister's boyfriend's place, he sees it as an opportunity to ask out the woman he's had a crush on since he was a teen (the delightful Teresa Palmer). However, he's afraid that if he turns up as himself, she won't be interested, so he lies and says he's an investment banker. Luckily his best mate (the incessantly irritating Dan Fogler) has just gotten fired from a swish car dealership and has liberated a brand new Mercedes for them to roll to the party in.
Obviously taking its cues from the likes of seminal 80s classic, Say Anything, the abrasive party element should have injected some fun, but the whole thing just never gels enough to register more than a chuckle. The only real laughs come via Demitri Martin as a recently crippled banker in an all too short cameo. I'm sure it seemed funny on the page, but the cast, as much as they try, just can't wring any laughs from it.
Grace deserves to be a romantic leading man. The former TV star has an inherent awkwardness on screen that he can effortlessly transform to charm when needs be, and he does his very best here. But, as someone who helped devise the story and Executive Produced the film, he has to take responsibility for it not working. Director Dowse seems to think that playing a classic tune from the era over every second scene makes the film entertaining, but sadly it just reminds us of far more entertaining productions.

Review by Mike Sheridan