April 9, 2010
Review - " Date Night " - (in theaters) By Roland Hansen
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Date Night
Directed by: Shawn Levy
starring: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Mark Wahlberg, James Franco,
Leighton Meester, Common, Taraji Henson, Kristen Wiig, Ray Liotta,
Mila Kunis, Mark Ruffalo, William Fichtner, and Olivia Munn.
"Date Night" puts the sparks back in the romantic comedy genre.
The light comedy, with a dash of adventure and mayhem, is an
entertaining mainstream movie about keeping the life in married life.
There are some thoughtful moments, too, about trust, fidelity and
keeping the home fires burning.
The latest rom-com in theatres has a oft repeated storyline..,mild
mannered out of towners mugged by big city chaos. However, "Date
Night" manages to deviate from the run of the mill stuff in spite of a fairly
stale storyline and an overlong car chase.
While story might be dated the script and the cast make it saleable and
thus makes it watchable. But what is eminent that the star cast of Steve
Carell and Tina Fay adds the zing to the movie. Phil and Claire Foster(
Steve and Tina) play a suburban New Jersey couple , Steve an
accountant and Tina a real estate agent whose marriage lacks the spirit
specially with two hyper demanding kids.
It helps if you're a fan of Tina Fey and Steve Carell. Here, they're
brilliantly teamed as Claire and Phil Foster, a suburban New Jersey
couple who attempt to bring the zing back in their lives by going for
weekly date nights at a dull local steakhouse.
When none of these work, Phil decides to change things by driving to nearby Manhattan for a big town night out at a trendy
sea food joint. This food joint turns out to be one of the high society ones and since they reached without reservations they
are made to wait. Soon they notice that a table is called for a couple, the Tripplehorns and when there is no response they
pretend to the Tripplehorns; What seems to be good idea turns out to be a bad one soon as they find out. They are soon
accosted by a pair of thugs who ask for the flash drive that they had apparently stolen from a local crime boss Miletto (Ray
Liotta) and while they manage to escape from the clutches of the thugs they manage to find their way to the swank condo of
one of Claire's old real estate clients. Helping extricate them from the hot seats is a very buff Mark Wahlberg as a computer
savvy spy-for-hire named Holbrooke(Mark Wahlberg).
Holbroke agrees to help the Fosters track down
the Tripplehorns; Meanwhile a small time drug
dealer named taste (James Franco) and his
stripper girlfriend Whippit(Mila Kunis) also have
similar problems like that of the Fosters. Next
the fosters visit Peppermint Hippo . the strip club
where Whippit works and Miletto keeps his
money.
The movie has wonderful comic moments which
make it sustainable. Credit must be given to
director Shawn Levy for setting up such comic
moments in the movie and gives the much
needed pace and life to the movie.; the movie
has its moments of pleasant mischief in spite of
not so great screenplay. This is a movie that
makes you leave the theatres with a smile on
your lips. Most of the time, "Date Night," even
if not particularly memorable, scores.
