Date Night

The pairing of NBC stars Steve Carrell and Tina Fey seems like a no brainer. Pairing them as a married couple is funny because their respective characters on their respective television shows are unlucky in love and thinking of Michael Scott and Liz Lemon dating makes me giggle at how awkward that date would be. Fey is all the rage right now and Carrell is always in style with his awkward white guy persona. I remember when I first heard about Date Night, I thought it sounded like a great idea. When I heard that James Franco, Mila Kunis and Mark Wahlberg were going to have minor roles, I got even more interested. However, when the trailers started trickling out, my excitement did not stay so high. I still wanted to see it, but it was no longer a must see, which is why it took me so long to finally get to the theater to see it.

Phil and Claire Foster(Carrell and Fey) are a married couple stuck in the routine of married life. They are not unhappy exactly, just bored. They never have sex and even their date nights have become routine. When some friends of theirs confide that they are getting a divorce because they realized they were just roommates now, Phil and Clare both start to worry individually that their own marriage is heading that way. So, Claire decides for the next date night, she was going to dress up a bit more. Phil follows suit and promises Claire dinner in the city. They are trying to shake their routine, remind themselves that they are still in love. Phil decides part of his shake up is to take someone else's reservation at a restaurant. When he does that, he sets off a chain of events that the Fosters will never forget. They are approached by two men who turn out to have guns and mistake the Fosters for thieves. Phil and Claire escape, but now they are being hunted by gun wielding maniacs who turn out to be cops, so the Fosters cannot turn to the cops. Instead they turn to a private security guy that Claire knows. Holbrooke(Wahlberg) helps how he can, but he does it shirtless and intimidates Phil. Phil and Claire go off to find the real thieves in an attempt to get the stolen property, return it and go back to their real lives, but more madness ensues!

Carrell and Fey make a very good team. They are giving to each other in comic moments and I completely buy them as a married couple. They are appealing together and they both have a nice easy charm on the big screen and these characters, while awkward, are not as painfully awkward as their television counterparts. The comedy is not as smart as one would expect from a movie in which Tina Fey is the star, but she does a pretty good job of slumming it for laughs. She looks great and is totally game for anything, including dressing up like a stripper and joining Carrell in his usual "Awkward White Guy" dance that he must utilize in everything he does, apparently. The mundane tasks of marriage come across pretty easily, but we never get the idea that this is a couple on the verge of divorce. We can see that these two love each other, they are just stagnant and what better way to break free from that then being chased all over New York city by two gun toting cops who are really bad guys trying to keep a mob boss in business?

Because this is a broad actionish comedy, there are comical set pieces, and the most effective is a lengthy car chase where the car the Fosters runs into a cab and they get stuck together, but they are on a chase from the cops, so the two interlocking cars drive together. It is hard to explain the comedy of this scene, but it is by far the most effective piece of comedy in the movie. It is laugh out loud funny and it works as an action scene as well, which is definitely nice. The stripper scene is also funny, but it is not anything new, really. We have seen Carrell do this a million times, but I will say Carrell and Fey doing the robot while trying to grind on each other was pretty funny. Every scene with Wahlberg hits very well. Wahlberg plays against his usual aggressive type and it works opposite Carrell's blustery anger at Wahlberg's shirtless chest. They also get a really good "F" word in there, which if you know me, I look for in the PG-13 movie.

The cop angle is annoying and wastes a valuable actress, Taraji P. Henson. The story does take a little too long to get where it going and not all of the comedy works for me. The first interaction between the Fosters and the two gun toting cops is supposed to come off as somewhat comical, but I found it to completely miss the mark and the one scene with James Franco and Mila Kunis did not work for me. I love both of them, but they were trying so hard to be funny that it came off rather painful, which is too bad because I was looking forward to it. I did like the running gag of people being disgusted with the Fosters taking a reservation, but even that kind of bombed in the scene with Franco and Kunis.

Date Night is a very safe, nice action comedy that does not ruffle any feathers. I believe Carrell and Fey have a much better movie in their combined future, perhaps one with a much harder edge. I feel like we have only experienced a pretty tame Fey and if given the opportunity, she could really do some R rated damage and we know Carrell is good in the edgier setting. There is definitely enough comedy that works to satisfy enough people, but I guess I was hoping for more from this particular duo. The supporting cast suggested something better as well, but Wahlberg shows a nice flare for comedy and makes me anticipate his summer comedy The Other Guys a little bit more.

Final Grade: C+