Review of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) by Dan L — 01 Jun 2012

I expected a lot from this, I thought it was going to be gut - bustingly hilarious It was funny at times, but it lacks a lot of humour. This comedy had it's moments, but most of the time - it wasn't funny at all.

SUMMARY:

Sidney Young (Simon Pegg),a small time British journalist, is hired by Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges), editor of Sharps magazine - which is very famous. He flies off to New York City and begins work the morning after he arrives. He starts to annoy his co-workers, first with Alison Olsen (Kirsten Dunst), and then his boss Lawrence Maddox (Danny Huston). Sidney soon finds out, as he spends more time with the stars, that if he wants to become big in this industry, he must co-operate with powerful publicists, like Eleanor Johnson (Gillian Anderson). He has his eyes set out for the sexy young star Sophie Maes (Megan Fox).

REVIEW:

This is based on the memoirs by former Vanity Fair writer Toby Young, and I think it's quite an interesting concept. We've seen this type in some films, and I think it's very good for a comedy. The main problem here was the characters. I didn't think there was anything special about them. The only characters that worth being called interesting are Sidney Young, Clayton Harding, and Richard Young (Bill Paterson), the father of Sidney. The relationship between Sidney and these characters has been beautifully written. The dialogue was fair enough, there were some funny lines.

Acting was decent. Simon Pegg was excellent as the lead. I found Kirsten Dunst a pain. She wasn't funny - I thought her performance was witless and it lacked charm. She kinda ruined the whole film for me. Even Megan Fox was better than her, though Fox's acting wasn't anything special - just eye candy for the boys. I liked Jeff Bridges, he was fantastic. Danny Huston wasn't so terrible either, and Gillian Anderson was very charming.

Jokes? I guess some were funny. Some were really flat, and weren't witty at all. I think the most funny scenes were with Sophie's Chihuahua - hilarious! So, there were entertaining jokes - but it needed more.

This is an ok comedy, with some funny jokes. It's entertaining enough, but there's nothing special. Megan Fox should delight a lot of boys, and her characters Chihuahua is so cute.