3 stars***
Lewd, rude and crude. Is this film really a comedy and if so, what type of comedy? It doesn’t get you rolling in your seat and laughing out loud, but it does contain some cracking screenplay writing.
It’s the story of a real jerk, hired by his friends to ensure his date with the girl is so awful that they’ll go running back to the original boyfriend seeing how ‘nice’ they really were. The problem occurs when he falls in love with one of the girls and this goes against the grain for all concerned.
Dane Cook stars as Sherman, called ‘Tank’ by his friends; joke number one. Kate Hudson has taken a chance with this movie. She’s usually ‘careful’ about her movie selections to keep in the safe haven area of general entertainment. Here she gets to swear, have rolling on the bed sex and generally be a crazy kid, unlike her usual activities on film, but I can report she carries off a great performance.
Writer Jordan Cahan’s first screenplay proves to be top of the class. This is an excellent draft using profanity like it’s gone out of fashion and writing vulgar loutish jokes at everyone’s expense. I’d like to have read the script before seeing the movie; it would have given me an insight to what the writer was after.
The trouble is that the movie doesn’t really get moving into top gear. I wonder if a different director and different actors would have produced a different movie. Of course, it would have, but would it be improved?
The flow has its peaks, but also lows. The ten scrapes at the wedding are quite limp and ruin the flow of the movie although they’re there for an obvious set up to lose his girl. The joke with the future mother-in-law is wonderful. You’ll have to see it to know it.
Some complain that it’s too coarse, but that’s the point of the screenplay, to see how ‘low’ you can go in being unpleasant, on a date. The screenplay is not full of clichés, but introduces brand new put downs that no-one would dare use, would they?
The music is good for me, because I liked a number of the songs, but music is always down to the ear of the beholder. Just ‘cos I like it doesn’t mean you will. I would have preferred Joan Jett’s version of Crimson and Clover, but as a movie reviewer, it’s too late to have your say.
With a $65 million budget, it might struggle to get to pay back, but for a first time screenplay writer, Jordan has a bright future.
I have to mention the sponsors, the thank you list. I’ve never seen such a long product placement list ever. Often the list might be seven to ten items. I didn’t count them, but I presume it came in at somewhere around three hundred. I guess most of the financing was from product placement. Whatever, I didn’t remember seeing any of them. Usually when the guy picks up the coke bottle you get to see the coca cola logo for long enough (and large enough) to convince you to leave the movie and go purchase another one. Maybe it’s all subliminal.
Now that would make a good movie idea…
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