Review of Date Night (2010) by Dawdlingpoet — 26 Nov 2021

This is quite an entertaining movie, with some quite funny scenes - the one main action/comedy scene that comes to mind involving a car thats smashed into a cab when Claire drives the wrong way up a one way street as she tries to escape from the bad guys and she ends up driving both cars which are somehow welded together after the smash, quite a distance, much to the cab drivers horror.

I thought that the pairing of Steve Carell and Tina Fey was quite good, in that they both are quite similar in terms of the type of slapstick/visual comedy their famous for - they both play quite quirky characters and they compliment each other in a sense with their equally funny/slightly witty dialogue at times. The movie has a bit of a comic book feel to it, with some of the more visual comedy aspects - particularly with Steves character Phil, who is so daft but also quite loveable because of that, I think.

Mark Wahlberg also appears in the movie playing Grant Holbrooke, who is the token hottie, whom Claire had originally known as a customer as hers (she's a realtor aka estate agent) and who at one point when the couple feel forced to go back to him for help, appears topless at his flat door - oh how convenient for the female viewers, something nice to look at(!). I can't help but feel a little cynical about it though, in that plot wise I'm not sure that there was much of a proper story behind this character though.

The plot is hardly original yet there are one or two parts of it which are perhaps slightly different to other similar movies, it didn't feel so run of the mill that I was entirely put off, though I can't say that I felt it particularly broke new ground either I suppose. The movie is only just under an hour and a half long which is a good length in my opinion, given the story and everything, if it went on for much longer it would soon start to feel tedious I think but with it being a fairly short movie (by todays standards), it works quite well as it provides a decent number of laughs and entertains enough to pass the time quite effectively without dragging on so long that you want to keep checking the time and wonder what your missing out on away from the TV!.

Its not exactly a perfect movie, yet I still felt that it was fairly entertaining with some amusing dialogue and some good visual comedy. Its unlikely to be either Carrel or Fey's best movie or appearance, yet the two of them are well paired and all in all, I'd say that its worth a shot, so yes I'd recommend it but I'm not sure that its a movie that you'd necessarily want to watch more than once. If its shown on TV or you can rent it and it appeals to you then its worth seeing I think but don't expect too much from it.