Film Reviews

Date Night

• Rating:
• Director: Shawn Levy
• Starring: James Franco
• Details: US/88mins 15A

The prospect of teaming two of the sharpest minds in mainstream American comedy is mouth-watering to say the least. Steve Carell isn't just a damn fine comedic performer; he also co-wrote the film credited with making grown up comedy funny again - The 40 Year Old Virgin - while Tina Fey's acting and scripting work on both 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live has seen her rise to queen-like status in the eyes of the American public. But throw in one of the blandest directors currently working in modern cinema and you basically have two actors trying desperately to polish a turd.
Carell and Fey are perfectly cast as a married couple in a bit of a rut. They still love each other deeply, but their marriage has gotten to the point of supreme repetitiveness. When some friends tell them they're getting a divorce, it shocks them into making an extra effort with each other and they head out for a special night on the town. After failing to get a reservation at a top Manhattan restaurant, they take someone else's booking, but are then mistaken as that couple by a couple of bent cops, working for a local mobster. Turns out said couple are in deep, and their planned exiting night out on the piss becomes something far more dangerous.
I shudder to think how bad this could've been with Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughy, but when you have two actors who deliver more funny lines in the gagreel at the end of the film (where they were obviously improvising) than in the actual film, you can only really blame the filmmakers. There are numerous chuckles scattered throughout this, but it's never anything more than that, and when the plot continues its foray into the comedically absurd there's just no going back - you've likely seen most of the "funny" bits in the TV spots already.
There are points throughout where it works; an on-going joke with a shirtless Mark Wahlberg; Fey's anger brimming under a polished surface, all undone with lines like, "I don't want the kids to live with your mother - she's awful." Director Levy throws both his stars in overtly wacky situations in an attempt to gloss over the banality of a severely lacking script, and it occasionally works.
Generic, inoffensive pap that will appeal to the undemanding, Date Night is ultimately a missed opportunity to do something special with two of the funniest people on television.

Review by Mike Sheridan