Movie Review: Date Night

A couple weekends ago, the Doc and I went to watch an afternoon showing of the Tina Fey/Steve Carell comedy Date Night and we had a blast.

I’ll admit that I was skeptical about the film before we went to watch it, especially when I was leaning towards watching Kick-Ass or Clash of the Titans… or even How To Train Your Dragon. I was pleasantly surprised.

These were one of the cases where the movie was not properly advertised. I went in thinking that all of the good jokes were already revealed in all of the commercials and trailers I’ve already seen on television, but they weren’t. I also thought the movie was going to be nothing more than a string of stale jokes and gags while being light on story, but I was wrong on that as well. I thought I was going to just sit in the theater and fake laugh when other people in the theater were laughing at jokes that would have, at best, made me smile at home, but I laughed hard enough that tears came out during some points. I don’t know why fake laugh when there’s other people laughing. Thankfully, I know my laughs were real because 12:45pm on a Saturday isn’t what I’d call the theater’s most crowded time. The Doc and I actually got really good seats. As a quick little side note: not only did we pay less for tickets because of the earlier time, the Doc and I got great seats, we were able to stretch out our legs and use the arm rests on our chairs, and when the movie was finished, we got to go on with the rest of the day with a smile. I recommend going to the day showings for movies whenever you can. Now on to the review!

Cast
The cast was brilliant. So much so, I’m surprised they were able to afford all those great comedians/actors and still be able to make a profit. As I’ve mentioned before, Tina Fey and Steve Carell star in this movie and they are hilarious. I thought one of them was going to go too far over the top, but they both kept were able to get a good level of goofiness (when they awkwardly do a striptease together) with heartfelt comedy (Steve Carell’s short monologue to Mark Wahlberg near the end). Mark Wahlberg’s character actually fit well in the movie. All of the commercials made it seem like his character was way too over-the-top when it comes to his almost sci-fi gadgets, but it was toned down in the movie. They could have gone just fine without the hi-tech computers and he still, believably, could have done the things he did, like trace a cell phone or call the police. Jimmi Simpson (I remember him as Mary in Psych) and Common (great musician and great actor) were pitch perfect baddies. Then there were the scene-stealers in James Franco (charcter is named “Taste”) and Mila Kunis (character is named “Whipit”). Stephanie Wiig and Mark Ruffalo had cameo-like appearances in the beginning that help get the ball rolling in the movie. And a side-note, one of my favorite comedians, Bill Burr, gets a lot of face-time (though few lines) in the movie as a police detective. Also Leighton Meester got a roll as the babysitter (I chose her a while ago to be Lana Lang if I casted Superman).

Story
The story was really good. I was surprised by this. I don’t know why I went into it with such low expectations, but I did and was surprised. The setup was basically that the main couple (Tina Fey and Steve Carell) find out separately that one of their couple friends were getting a divorce because their marriage had gotten stale or systematic. This sparks Steve Carell and Tina Fey to go into New York City (they live in Jersey) to have a date night. They usually had a date night at a local restaurant and get a usual order. As the commercials showed, they took someone else’s reservations and it turned out those people were up to no good. I’m going to avoid spoilers by saying the story was great. Yes, it got goofy in some parts, like when they run with a boat over their heads or when they seemed to have fused a Audi with a taxi, but the story was surprisingly believable and I actually found myself routing for the main characters. I haven’t routed for a character in a comedy in a long time. Yes, there were a lot of jokes and gags, but they worked well and the movie never felt like they were beating me over the head with jokes just to get a rise out of me.

Soundtrack
Yeah, I didn’t really listen for music when watching this film. This movie could have had nothing but white noise playing in the background and I’d still enjoy it.

Overall
This definitely gets a recommendation from me to watch in the theaters. But if you can’t swing that, then renting works just fine. Also, make sure to sit through the beginning credits and enjoy the gag reels where you see some alternate lines they tried out for some scenes. I think some of them would have made me laugh a lot harder, but were probably outside the lines for their characters.