The prize for the movie that gives the best value for your money goes to Date Night, an 88-minute roller coaster that starts off zipping straight to the top and never really lets up with thrills, spills and even a few worthy marital lessons thrown in for good measure.
The movie is about Phil and Claire Foster (the perfectly matched Steve Carell and Tina Fey), a husband and wife who have found themselves in a familiar rut of routine childrearing, homemaking and the day-to-day rigmarole that offers zero excitement or spontaneity. That all changes when on a regularly scheduled date, the two decide to try a popular restaurant without a reservation. Denied and desperate, they make the well-intentioned but unfortunate error of taking someone else’s table. This sparks a mushroom cloud case of mistaken identity that starts off awful and only gets worse and worse.
They are initially accosted by two thugs named Collins (Common) and Armstrong (Jimmi Armstrong). The nefarious henchmen accuse the Fosters of being the notorious Tripplehorns who are trying to extort money from their boss in exchange for a flash drive filled with scandalous information. The thugs take the Fosters at gunpoint to retrieve the property, only to have the kidnappees escape as they try to also extract themselves from the fine mess they’ve gotten themselves into. You’ve heard the saying that you have to get through hell before you can get to heaven? Well, their escape route gets them into trouble with corrupt cops, a shady and plain weird district attorney named Crenshaw (William Fichtner), a ruthless mob boss, a buff and eternally shirtless and stoic international security expert (Mark Wahlberg), and the real Tripplehorns also known as Taste (James Franco) and Whippit (Mila Kunis).
This whole movie consists of strokes upon strokes of genius. Carell is like a more reasonable and mature version of Will Ferrell, the kind of comedic actor who actually seems plausible. Pairing him with the goddess Tina Fey was all that was needed for me to put Date Night on my much-anticipated list for 2010. The screenplay was written by Josh Klausner, a former assistant director who cut his teeth with the Farrelly Brothers, and it was directed by Canadian Shawn Levy whose Night at the Museum movies are immensely watchable. He put this one together much like a classic Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker comedy from the 1980s except with fewer horribly contrived gag setups.
Most importantly, it has everything. It starts off like a primer for marriage, filled with truths so unfunny that they become funny. You could even make the argument the movie itself is like a marriage: two characters start off with the best of intentions only to get sidetracked and stumble along to find their way back to the desired path. There’s great comedy, some excellent action and a total bevy of cameos that the canisters of celluloid should just be submitted as an addendum to the Hollywood yearbook.
The only real problem is that of balance. The tone of this wonderfully dense movie starts off strong and ends fantastically but there is major downslide in the middle with a few interesting moguls along the way. There is an almost audible ‘thump’ as the Fosters land at rock bottom with their ability to deal with the situation and their faith in the marriage in general, marking the lowest point of any great comedy that I’ve seen in a long time. Marital strife is no laughing matter, although you can rest assured that things do end well. I reference Martin Scorsese’s 1985 dark comedy After Hours as the template and high benchmark for many of these kinds of midnight misadventure movies but as copycats go, Date Night gets my blessing.
Date Night
Directed by: Shawn Levy<br />Starring: Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Mark Wahlberg, Common, Taraji P. Henson, Jimmi Simpson, William Fichtner, Leighton Meester, Kristen Wiig, Mark Ruffalo, James Franco, and Mila Kunis<br />Now playing at: Grandin Theatres, North Edmonton Cineplex, Westmount Centre Cinemas, and Scotiabank Theatre<br />Rated: PG<br />Stars: 3.5
