|
Review:
 One
of the reason that the Farrelly brothers' were so successful at
gross-out comedy was that the characters weren't cut-out cartoons,
but well defined people. This little fact hasn't been lost on
Steve Carell and his friend Judd Apatow, they've done a silly sex
comedy with endearing characters we can kind of root for.
Basically, Andy Stitzer (Carrell) is a normal guy who's just had
bad luck on the love track and has given up. His energy is taken
up with hobbies, and while he's a bit on the lonely side, he's
rather content with his life, that is, until his coworkers
David(Paul Rudd), Jay(Romany Malco) and Cal(Seth Rogen) discover
his secret during a poker game, and then all heck begins to break
loose.
They decide, against Andy's better judgment to make it their
project to get our hero laid. This isn't as easy as it seems, as
either the woman is a nutcase(Leslie Mann) or things don't exactly
work out as expected. But then there's Trish (Catherine Keener),
an older woman of sorts who may just be our hero's soul-mate.
That's what makes this work. The romantic angle is the hook. We
know that Andy and Trish are going to get it on eventually, but
it's the journey that matters, not the end, and in the meantime,
we get secondary plot arcs which means that David, Jay and Cal
actually have stories of their own which actually make sense and
we could follow. That's difficult to do when you've only got an
hour and a half film.
Especially since nobody's actually an idiot. Generally with these
things, at least half the cast are thick as a post, and while they
might seem so for a few moments here and there, everybody's
generally intelligent and caring.
It's also funny as hell. This is definitely something that should
be seen.
Eric Lurio
|
