Review of The Layover (2017) by Chris C — 01 Sep 2017

All comedy is subjective, everyone knows that, but when it comes to comedy that's just plain lazy, I believe everyone has the right to complain, even if some viewers find it funny. If anyone comes out of The Layover in a good mood, I feel as though they may have found a certain guilty pleasure from the jokes throughout this film, because I quite honestly have very little to compliment this movie on. Not only is this one of the laziest comedies I've seen in a while, but it's just one of the worst films of 2017, period. Staring the screen in awe of what the filmmakers thought would work as comedy, baffled me to no end. If you are unaware of who was at the helm as director, then please keep reading, because it shocked me as well. Here is why I believe you should stay far away from this movie.

Sure, a premise following two women fighting over the same man could be funny, even though it's been done to death, because everything has been done before when it comes to film. You have to be original with your humour and have a few turns that the audience doesn't expect in order to make a film like this work, but you've literally seen everything this film delivers done before, and much better if I may add. Two recently unemployed best friends embark on a vacation where they have to make an emergency landing and end up spending their layover time with a good-looking man. From here, the film becomes a lazy attempt at comedy, landing about 10% of its landing, and that's being generous.

Yes, William H. Macy (the very talented actor) directed this film, and I have no idea why. I'm sure he had his reasons and thought it was a good script or just simply wanted more directing experience, but this was not a good film for him to put his name on. Sure, the film is put together fine and the shots/editing is all competent, but I just found the film to be lacking in one of the most important things, it's screenplay. Once again, I'm not sure why Macy chose this film to work on, but this is one of the worst scripts of the year.

Putting together a movie like this (without the mention of the type completely typecast leading actresses) should be a piece of cake in terms of chemistry, because if you have an entire movie based around a friendship being torn apart by a man, you need to set-up a reason for viewers to care about them ever getting back together, but I honestly didn't. They seemed to not care about each other whenever they were separated, so I quite honesty found more things to dislike about these characters than anything else. For this reason alone, the movie didn't work right off the bat, and it only got worse from there.

In the end, The Layover is a movie that should've been released straight to DVD or shouldn't have even been green-lit, because I honestly can't see many people enjoying this film or finding much of it funny. Admittedly, I found myself chuckling once or twice and although the film is pure garbage, the conclusion was satisfying enough. From is average filmmaking, to the poor screenplay, to the typecast actresses, to the plot that's as unfunny and predictable as some of the worst comedies in recent memory, I found nothing to compliment here, which is why my grade is so incredibly low. If you're looking for a good comedy, you're better off looking elsewhere, and I usually don't like being very harsh on films. Being a large fan of Alexandra Daddario and William H. Macy, I find myself a little disappointed, even though I was expecting much.