Review of Just Friends (2005) by Emily R — 13 May 2011

Samantha James: Wait a minute, am I being Punk'D? Oh my god! Ashton, you really got me! Ha Ha! Ashton! Ashton?

Mr. Palamino: How did you lose all that weight? Like that retard from Subway?

Mike: You'll always be fat to me!

Mike: Raise your hand if your brother's a homo!

This movie just brings good times and you'll laugh. And "The Friend Zone" what a bad place to be if you have been there you'll enjoy this movie so much just as I did it is still funny and a Rom-Com with more Com than anything with the Heart of Rom in it's place but it makes you pass the time so much entertained it a great ride. With a great cast and Ryan Reynolds was amazing as a fat guy yeah it wasn't too believable but it was still funny but the rest of the antics of the movie a hilarious. The Brothers relationship was amazing and what I'm saying the whole cast is amazing even the cardboard style ones gave me a few laughs. I actually didn't see any down sides with this movie you just have to take it for what it is and it's purpose.

Anna Farris I have always been wary of. It's a big gamble starting your mainstream career in "Scary Movie" which is an obvious typecast. However, Anna's performance is excellent. She really takes that role and just when you think she can't shock you any more, she does.

Amy Smart doesn't really have a comedic role to play in this movie, which is a shame because as a comedic actress she really is quite something and pleasantly surprised me with her performance as the insane helicopter pilot in "Rat Race". Amy is the normality check in the movie when the other characters are getting a bit too crazy (I often find that insanity ruins good comedy).

Chris Marquette plays Ryan's brother. Somebody give this guy a medal. The play fighting that goes on between Chris and Ryan is the greatest on screen chemistry I have seen in a long time. You do really link to and believe the brotherly bond.

Chris Klein. Chris used to bore me. I though he was your standard pretty boy actor that could get away with an unchallenging side role in a comedy (American Pie), but this movie changed all that for me. I'm actually smiling here just remembering some of the faces he pulls during this movie.

...to wrap up. If you're a Ryan Reynolds fan or like a feel good movie or just plain want to see something funny, then don't miss this film. It guarantees a giggle or 2 and really leaves you feeling great. I loved it.

Chris Brander has always been friends with Jamie Palamino, but now decides it is time to take his relationship to the next step. The problem is, is that Jamie still wants to be 'Just Friends'. When he runs away and moves to L.A., he becomes a attractive music manager, who everyone wants. When his jet crashes, when flying to Paris with his newest singing sensation, Samantha James, he ends up back home. To his surprise, he encounters Jamie again, and sets out to be more than 'Just Friends' this time.

When he confessed his love for his best friend during their formative high school years ago, Chris was met with a broken heart and a degrading humiliation. Only adding insult to injury was his larger than life frame which became a source of ridicule for cruel classmates. But years later and things having changed, Chris is now a hotshot record producer in Hollywood and the complete physical opposite of himself in high school. He's also got an up and coming act by the name of Samantha James who has a psychotic crush on her producer. When a freak accident occurs on the way to Paris, Chris is forced to return home with her in tow. Little does he know that he would come face to face with the friend that he tried so desperately to forget. With the chance to woo her again, Chris will do what he can despite his client's violent misgivings and a competitive rival suitor against him. No matter the crazy obstacles he must overcome, Chris will do whatever it takes to be more than just friends.

Chris Brander (Reynolds), an obese high school student in a suburban community in New Jersey, is in love with his best friend, Jamie Palamino (Smart). In 1995, on the night of their high school graduation, Chris attends Jamie's graduation party, and confesses his feelings to her by writing them in her yearbook; when he tries to return her yearbook to her, however, it is swiped by Jamie's ex-boyfriend Tim (Ty Olsson) and he reads it aloud at the party. Chris is then publicly humiliated when she doesn't reciprocate his feelings, instead giving him a kiss on the cheek and saying she loves him like a brother. After Jamie yells at their classmates for making fun of him, Chris storms away humiliated from the party on his bicycle, vowing to leave town and become more successful than all of them.

Ten years later, Chris is handsome and successful with a thriving career as a record producer in Los Angeles and a reputation as a ferocious womanizer. Just before Christmas, his boss (Stephen Root) orders him to take up-and-coming pop singer Samantha James (Anna Faris) to Paris so that she will sign with their company. Chris goes reluctantly, as he has a history with the self-obsessed James. On the duo's "business" trip to Paris, Samantha sets her private jet on fire by neglecting to remove the aluminum foil from her microwave dinner. This necessitates an emergency landing in New Jersey, not far from Chris's hometown. He takes her to his mother's house for the night, causing him to face the humiliating high school years he left behind and his unresolved feelings for Jamie.

Stepping out to the local bar, Chris runs into some old friends, including Jamie, who is working her way through graduate school as a bartender. Thinking that he can finally get his high school love out of his system, Chris plans to woo and seduce Jamie. However, a number of unexpected problems and the growing realization that his friendship with Jamie actually did mean something to him keep getting in the way. He bonds with Jamie on several occasions. But Dusty Lee Dinkleman, an even nerdier kid in school has now become a successful musician, and plans to have sex with Jamie and publicly humiliate her like she did to him when she told him she didn't like him. Jamie and Dusty bond and eventually he turns her against Chris when Samantha destroys Jamie's family's Christmas decorations thinking that Chris was sleeping with Jamie behind her back (she thinks that she and Chris are in a relationship). Angry and disappointed with Jamie and her family, Chris returns to LA only to realize that Jamie is the one for him. He leaves for his hometown again, goes to Jamie's house, and declares his love for her. And the film ends with some neighborhood kids watching Jamie and Chris kiss and a little boy gives one of the girls a cookie he made for her and she says "Thanks, you're a good friend'" suggesting that he may go through the same experience.