dir: David Schimmer
2007
Sure, the title of this flick is a phrase that has been yelled at me
by people in passing cars, the police, girlfriends and my own mother,
but I'm not bitter about it...
Well, not too bitter.
Simon Pegg is becoming a ubiquitous figure of British comedy, in that
a few comedies come out of Britain each year, and he seems to be in at
least one of them annually. Yes, that is my new definition of
ubiquity.
He's recognisable, and has a loyal following of fans who find his
antics and constant mugging amusing. Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz
are his two most well known roles, but you shouldn't make the mistake
of thinking that this flick right here is anything like those other
ones.
This should not, nay, MUST not be confused with the comedies Pegg's
been in with Nick Frost and directed by Ed Wright.
Because, in case you missed it, this flick was directed by the tool
who used to play Ross on Friends. Yes, the loathsome, the terrible,
the horripilating David Schimmer.
This is a fairly lame and lazy romantic comedy, and had it starred
someone else I probably would never have bothered seeing it. It does
however have some pretty funny people in it, making up for the
abjectly pathetic script.
Dennis (Simon Pegg) immediately gets on our bad side by doing
something few non-retarded men would ever catch themselves doing: he
abandons his fianc=E9, Libby (Thandie Newton) at the altar. Not only
that, but she's also heavily pregnant at the time. He runs away from
the commitment literally.
Let's face it, this is Thandie Newton we're talking about. Forget the
abandonment issues, this is just abject stupidity.
The story jumps forward five years to a time where Dennis's life has
only increased in patheticness, and he also seems to be wearing a
pillow under his shirt to imply that he is overweight. His only
friends are Libby's degenerate cousin Gordon (Dylan Moran), and a
curious Indian landlord (Harish Patel) who I was certain was going to
hit on Dennis for most of the movie's duration, until he utters the
film's funniest line.
Dennis lives the life of an absolute shlub, for whom no audience could
possibly have any sympathy. To make matters worse, despite having left
her at the altar, when Libby enters into a relationship with a
charming American (Hank Azaria), he decides that now is the time to
somehow prove to Libby, his irritating son and the world that he's not
a complete sack of shit.
To do this he has to run in a marathon.
For all his wonderfulness, the American has to be revealed to be a
prick in order for us to supposedly side with Dennis in his pursuit of
Libby. Because if they don't reveal that Whit, as he is unfortunately
called, is a puppy-raping granny-puncher, then we really wouldn't care
much one way or another.
Not that we actually do. Montage scenes ensue of Dennis's training,
which is funny to me because on the wall of Dennis's one-room bedsit
there's a poster from Team America: World Police, which, with puppets,
deconstructed montages with the help of a song explaining all the
various prerequisites in "It's a Montage!"
And the montage here follows the pattern to the letter. All the while
Dennis keeps getting more and more reasons why he must complete the
marathon (nothing so cheesy as winning it is required), more reasons
to quit, and more reasons to hate the loathsome Whit.
The humour that ensues from all of this is surprisingly childish,
including scenes where a guy sprays some liquid in another guy's face,
and a scene where Dennis tries to combat the chafing in his underpants
by scratching his groin against a mannequin's delicate hand. In truth
these scenes did make me smile, albeit unwillingly, but I felt bad
about it, if that's any consolation.
So many films seem to be about men trying to earn the respect of their
children and former spouses, so much so that it is a pretty formulaic
plot with a pretty predictable trajectory, and thus uninteresting in a
comedy unless it's funny. I would argue that a flick directed by
someone as fundamentally unfunny as David Schimmer has no chance of
being funny. He is to comedy what Stalin was to cultural sensitivity.
Or what Stalin was to comedy, for that matter.
Somehow, because he can be damned funny, and because he sells some of
the excruciating dramatic bits, Simon Pegg (and Dylan Moran, who is
funnier at his drunken worst than Schimmer is at his sober, flailing
best) salvages what should have been an utter disaster. The flick is
still a painful entry in the annals of romantic comedic history,
because they're all painful, but it could have been substantially
worse.
Especially if Schimmer himself had appeared onscreen. That would have,
to use the technical term, really screwed the pooch.
By the flick's end we'll know whether Dennis has the intestinal
fortitude to shed the pillow under his clothes and change his life in
positive ways to show his son and former partner that he is worthy of
being loved. Or whether he should be put down like the lame dog that
he is.
Because, you know, as someone who's pretty hefty himself, I always
appreciate being told by flicks made by people who have squillions of
dollars at their disposal who don't have to work office jobs, with the
benefit of personal trainers and the time, more importantly, to devote
themselves to the worship of their own bodies, that the path to self-
respect and love is through jogging.
6 times self-destruction always appealed more to me over self-
improvement through fitness, even before I ever saw Fight Club, out of
10
--
"Mostly I remember all the fucking." - Run Fatboy Run.
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