“The Hate U Give” may be the best movie of 2018 most people haven’t heard of. This smart, heartfelt and riveting drama is perhaps the finest cinematic exploration of race relations in American in the past decade.
It takes as its jumping-off point the shooting of an unarmed African-American man, but this isn’t a heedless Black Lives Matter screed. Amandla Stenberg plays Starr, a smart kid from the bad part of town who attends an upscale, predominantly white high school on a scholarship. She narrates about traversing these two worlds, show us how she speaks and behaves around her white friends, including boyfriend Chris (K.J. Apa), and her black family and friends.
One day she meets up with an old childhood friend she’s sweet on, and he winds up getting shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop. For a while no one in either her white or black communities know she’s a witness, and Starr struggles to find a middle way that will protect those she cares about.
The terrific supporting cast includes Russell Hornsby as her dad, who has a powerful scene where he gives “The Speech” about how black teens should behave around law enforcement; Regina Hall as her mother; Common as her uncle, who’s also a member of the LAPD himself; and Sabrina Carter as a white friend who turns out to be not as woke as Starr thought.
Directed by George Tillman Jr. from a screenplay by Audrey Wells, based on the book by Angie Thomas, “The Hate U Give” offers no easier answers but many nagging -- and important -- questions.
Bonus features are quite good, cemented by a feature-length audio commentary track by Tillman, Stenberg, Hornsby and editor Craig Hayes. Such commentaries are always better when they include cast and crew.
There are also three extended scenes six making-of documentary shorts.
“Smallfoot” is a better idea than movie. The twist is that in this story, bigfoots really exist, except to them we’re the mythological and frightening creatures. It’s a cool concept that gets watered down into a standard kiddie film with boingy action and a slathered-on life-lessons theme.
Channing Tatum voices Migo, a young yeti who is about to take over the prestigious job of gong-ringer. This means making the sun rise by catapulting himself across their Himalayan mountain village and slamming his head into a massive gong. His dad (Danny DeVito) has held the position for many years, and has literally shrunk in the job.
A lot of the things the yetis do are like that -- they’re fun but don’t make much sense. Still, it’s a bustling place with a lot of joy.
They have some strange laws, though, enforced by the stoic Stonekeeper (Common), who wears a robe consisting of stone tiles, each one inscribed with a law known to be true. One of them reads, “There is no such thing as a smallfoot.” Odd that they would have a word and a rule for something that supposedly doesn’t exist.
Soon enough Migo stumbles across a real smallfoot, aka human, in the form of Percy Patterson (James Corden), a down-market wildlife television personality who has come to the Himalayas in order to fake a bigfoot sighting and pump up his ratings. Then he runs into the real thing, they become fast friends and Migo takes him back to his mountaintop village.
This puts him in conflict with the Stonekeeper and the yetis’ entire belief system. But with a few musical numbers and antics, everything will turn out all right.
“Smallfoot” is animation for the whole family, or at least the sort under age 10. It’s a perfect movie for home video, since parents can hit the ‘play’ button and then find something better to do.
Video extras are decent, and include a new animated short, “Super Soozie,” about a yeti toddler. There’s also a sing-along mode, three music videos and a couple of making-of featurettes.
In this age of peak tribalism, people tend to cluster in like groups and don’t question the precepts of what they’re told. Especially for those whom life is good, it’s easy to stay in the bubble and enjoy. Everyone else is a potential enemy.
That’s the message of “Smallfoot,” a modestly entertaining animation flick that will certainly thrill wee ones more than adults. I found the themes heavy-handed and the pacing rather draggy.
I bet kids under age 10 will love it, though, and that’s who it’s aimed squarely at.
Channing Tatum, really reaching for the upper register of his voice, plays Migo, a young yeti -- as in bigfoot, sasquatch, etc. It turns out bigfoots (feet?) are real, and living in bliss at the top of a cloud-covered mountain the Himalayas. Daily life is a pleasant grind of chores, some of which make little sense, and good times.
Migo goes about 20 feet tall, has luminous ivory-colored fur, no nose and two horns on his head, one broken. He sort of resembles a distant cousin of Sully from the “Monsters Inc.” movies.
Migo’s dad, Dorgle, is the head gong-ringer, whose job is to be catapulted across the top of the village each daybreak and smash his head into the giant gong that beckons the emergence of the sun, which in their lore is a sun-snail traveling across the sky. (Sounds loopy, but it isn’t worse than some human mythology I’ve heard.)
Time has taken its toll: Dorgle is rather short for a yeti -- Danny DeVito does the voice; get it? -- but used to be taller than the towering Migo. Soon he will pass the mantle to his enthusiastic son.
The yetis have their laws written in stones, quite literally. Their leader is the Stonekeeper (Common), who wears tiles of stones formed into a robe, each one inscribed with a truth that goes unquestioned. The weight of the law is a real thing in this case. “It takes a strong backbone,” Stonekeeper says.
Chief among their laws is, “There is no such thing as a smallfoot,” which is their word for humans. You might think it odd that there is a law just to disprove a negative, and there are a few quiet naysayers amongst the yeti. Among them is Gwangi, the largest of their kinds voiced quite well by LeBron James, and secretly their leader is Meechee (Zendaya), the Stonekeeper’s daughter.
Migo meets up with a smallfoot but his claims are discredited and he is banished. In his exile he journeys to the human town below the mountain and bumps into Percy Patterson (James Corden), a schmaltzy British wildlife broadcaster. Think Steve Irwin, but less brave and more annoying.
His plan was to fake a yeti sighting to save his fading career. So when Migo carries him back to his village as proof, it’s a boon to them both.
I liked how screenwriters Clare Sera and Karey Kirkpatrick (the latter also directed) handle the language barrier. To the humans, yetis sound like roaring bear-lions; to the yetis, humans make squeaky mouse-talk.
There are several songs in “Smallfoot,” though I’d call this more a movie with musical interludes than a straight-up musical. By far the best is “Let It Lie,” with Common rapping out the hidden history of the yeti.
A middling bit of animation, “Smallfoot” is built for small children to love and parents to endure. Business proposal: movie theaters start featuring double bills in which grownups drop off their kids to see this in a supervised theater while they pop next door for something more to their tastes.
The best thing about the John Wick movies is that they do not pretend to be anything other than what they are: slick, ultra-violent escapism that mixes a grim revenge saga with gallows humor.
Keanu Reeves reprises his role as the reluctant hitman pulled back into a world of murder and double-crosses. Also returning is screenwriter Derek Kolstad, who dreamed up this nutty, vibrant world, and Chad Stahelski, a longtime stuntman and coordinator handpicked as director.
The actors and crew seem perfectly aligned in their goal, which is to deliver kick-ass mayhem with a minimum of fat or fuss.
Things pick up almost exactly where they left off. Wick completes his revenge on the Russian mobsters who killed his dog and stole his classic Mustang, with much damage to said pony car. Then new trouble surfaces: Santino D’Antonio (Ricardo Scamarcio), an Italian crime lord who wants Wick to knock off his sister so he can take her seat at the High Table – a sort of United Nations for villains.
Wick takes some convincing, but finally takes on the assignment.
There’s the usual army of disposable henchmen to take on, as well as a few elites: Common and Ruby Rose play veteran assassins who know Wick’s reputation from the old days. Wick gives better than he gets, but he still gets gradually worn down: pummeled, slashed, shot. He keeps going, if a bit more awkwardly with each step.
The stunts are the star of “John Wick 2,” and it’s a thrilling mix of amazing action that happens at a believable speed. Stahelski largely shoots Reeves in full body without a lot of cuts, so we can actually see the violence play out.
The ending makes no pretenses about setting up a “John Wick 3,” and I for one am happy to sign on for another ride.
Bonus features are good, anchored by a feature-length commentary track with Reeves and Stahelski. The best commentaries usually include input from both stars and filmmakers. The DVD edition also has two featurettes: “As Above, So Below: The Underworld of John Wick” and “RetroWick: Exploring the Unexpected Success of John Wick.”
Upgrade to the Blu-ray version, and you add seven more featurettes touching on various aspects of production, including a “Kill Count” just in case you were wondering how many people Wick offs during the movie. (It’s impressive.) Finally, there is a bonus short film, “Dog Wick.”
There was a certain feral purity to 2014’s “John Wick.” It was your standard chop-socky-and-gunplay action flick featuring a faded star, with one notable departure: the reason behind the orgy of blood made absolutely no sense.
I mean, what kind of retired assassin goes on a killing spree simply because some Russian goons stole his car and killed his puppy? Even if the latter was a posthumous gift from his recently departed wife? The sheer absurdity of the revenge motivation gave the movie a sort of bent edge -- suggesting that the eponymous killer may have just been using it as an unconscious excuse to dive back into this old life.
(Plus, I love puppies but they’re easily replaced. 1969 Mustang Boss 429s, on the other hand, don’t just grow on trees. #Priorities, man.)
The sequel takes up almost literally at the moment the last one ended, with John Wick (Keanu Reeves) wrapping things up with the Russians and reclaiming his ride -- though not without collateral damage. (If the filmmakers did that to a real 429, we hates them forever.)
“John Wick: Chapter 2” is stylistically a retread of the first, though it takes us deeper into the lore of the underground assassins’ world that we stuck a toe into in the first movie. We learn of a “High Table” of crime syndicates, whom the assassins serve using their own complex set of rules.
This infrastructure includes “The Continental,” a fancy New York hotel that’s neutral ground where the killers can rest, heal and rearm. The manager, Winston (Ian McShane), enforces the house policy with severe exactitude. Now we learn there are Continentals in virtually every major city, including Rome, where most of the action takes place. Wick doles out gold coins accumulated during his gun-for-hire days to pay his way.
It turns out that Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio), an Italian crime family prince, has a “marker” from John Wick, a promise to repay an old debt no matter what. Santino wants to kill his sister, Gianna (Claudia Gerini), so he can take her place at the High Table. Of course, Wick has sworn off his old life and will need… convincing.
Stunts are at the heart of “John Wick: Chapter 2,” so it’s no surprise it was directed by longtime stunt coordinator Chad Stahelski, who made his debut behind the camera with the last movie. Derek Kolstad returns as script man.
I like that the mayhem happens at a believable speed, without a whole lot of fast editing to cover up the choreography. Wick’s signature move is spinning around multiple opponents, grappling them and disabling with shots or kicks, and then finishing them off with a cap to the head.
Wick’s good, of course, but so is everybody else, and he takes a lot of hits that slow him down. For instance, when he gets stabbed in the leg, he limps for the rest of the movie. And his face gets gradually chewed up into dog food.
New opponents this go-round are Common as Cassian, an old pro in the game with a shared history and respect, and Ruby Rose as Ares, the chief lieutenant for Santino. Rose makes an impression with her boyish suits and haircut, and the fact her character is mute. Conveniently, Wick speaks sign language, so they can taunt each other via subtitles.
Laurence Fishburne turns up as a sort of shambolic king of the homeless underground, and John Leguizamo returns in a cameo as Wick’s friend and able mechanic.
Like a lot of Keanu Reeves’ performances, this one is rather hard to penetrate. Depending on the material, he can seem cool or wooden. He under-acts to the point of seeming like he doesn’t care about the talkie scenes, and is saving his energy for the fights.
I like that he doesn’t have the sort of snarly bravado we’re used to in action heroes; his John Wick genuinely seems like he’d rather be sitting around his mansion doing Sad Keanu memes, or anything else.
This movie vibrantly carries on the John Wick story, satisfactorily expands upon its world and makes no bones about setting up a part three. It even offers a possible reason why he gave such a damn about that vehicle -- beyond the fact that it’s the greatest muscle car ever made, of course.
"Run All Night" is about just that: a single dark night over the course of which which lives will be lost, old debts repaid, stained honor redeemed and many bullets will fly. It's the rare movie where the quiet, talkie parts are more interesting than the action mayhem.
Liam Neeson plays Jimmy "Gravedigger" Conlon, a once-legendary mob hitman who has devolved into a pitiable drunk. His old partners in crime have gone legit, he's become a joke in the working-class dives he frequents, and his own son Michael (Joel Kinnaman) wants nothing to do with him.
But through a series of unfortunate events, Jimmy saves Michael's life by killing the son of his gangster friend, Shawn, who's played by Ed Harris. Jimmy offers to make good by giving his own life in exchange, but Shawn is an old-school type who wants an eye to match the one he's lost.
The rest of the movie is essentially one long chase, with various mob toughs and cops out to get Jimmy and Michael. Actor/rapper Common turning up as a younger, meticulous assassin who acts as counterpoint to Jimmy's guts-and-instincts M.O. Vincent D'Onofrio plays the police detective who's wanted to see Jimmy in cuffs for years, but decides he can't be abandoned to Shawn's (lack of) mercies.
Director Jaume Collet-Serra gets a little too caught up in fancy filmmaking techniques -- slo-mo "bullet time" and jumpy editing. Some of the action sequences just plain go on too long, turning into an indistinguishable mashup of guns blazing and fists flying.
The slower character scenes have weight and punch, however. Harris and Neeson are terrific in their scenes together, two men who chose the way of the gun long ago, fully knowing it might lead to a night like this one.
It's a well-made movie that probably could've been a better one.
Extra features are just so-so. The DVD comes only with a handful of deleted scenes. Upgrade to the Blu-ray combo pack and you add two making-of featurettes. One focuses on the production, while the other is about Neeson's resurgence as a long-tooth action star.
“Selma” was a good but hardly great movie. The fact that it received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture seems more a nod to the weight of the historical subject it tackled -- the civil rights struggle that brought about the Voting Rights Act of 1965 -- rather than the actual aesthetic merits of how they depicted it.
I found David Oyelowo alternately mesmerizing and off-putting as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Director Ava DuVernay and her star have talked in interviews about their deliberate effort not to perform an impersonation of King. But the cadence of his speeches is such an important part of his legend -- so when Oyelowo purposefully avoids replicating that timbre, it subtracts from the power of those scenes.
(The filmmakers also weren’t helped by being denied permission to use the actual text of the speeches, so screenwriter Paul Webb had to whip up facsimiles.)
By far the most memorable part of the movie is the depiction of the brutal “Bloody Sunday” encounter between peaceful protestors and Alabama state troopers. Harrowing and vividly emotional, this sequence brings the dry history out of the textbook and into our eyes and hearts.
Other scenes, though, become a flat parade of supporting characters who struggle to erect any kind of identity.
In retrospect, the hurricane of controversy over the film “only” receiving two Academy Award nominations seems ridiculous. (It did win for best song.) The reason it didn’t fare better during the awards season is because it’s just not that great a movie.
Certainly worthy of our time, but not fawning admiration.
The film is being given a sumptuous video release with a host of extra features, though you’ll need to buy the Blu-ray version to get most of them. The DVD only comes with a couple of educational featurettes.
The Blu-ray adds several making-of featurettes, a music video of “Glory,” photo gallery, deleted and extended scenes, and two separate commentary tracks: one by DuVernay and Oyelowo -- I always love it when actors join their directors for these things -- and the other with DuVernay and her cinematographer and editor.
"Run All Night" is a revenge action movie that is at its best when the bullets aren't flying. Liam Neeson has become the patron saint of this genre now: old guys who have to roust themselves out of a torpor for One Last Job. But he's still got the goods, as a bunch of younger guys who underestimate him are soon to discover.
I really admired the setup for this story. Jaume Collet-Serra, who previously directed Neeson in "Unknown" and "Non-Stop," and screenwriter Brad Ingelsby ("Out of the Furnace") give us a compelling world that's both familiar and new, with cops and gangsters, sons and fathers, loyalty to old friends battling with familial devotion.
It's the sort of movie where the broke-down drunk with a dark past redeems himself over the course of one night.
Neeson is Jimmy Conlon, a legendary hitman for New York mobster Shawn Maguire, who's played by Ed Harris. They used to be on the front pages all the time, mostly for outfoxing the law, but now the years have rolled on, unkindly. Shawn has become a legitimate businessman -- mostly, anyway -- and their old haunts are getting turned into Applebees.
And Jimmy, once nicknamed "Gravedigger," the guy others stepped off from when he walked into the bar, has become the pitiful rummy they laugh at.
One early scene is more or less lifted straight out of "The Godfather," with Shawn's kid Danny (Boyd Holbrook) demonstrating what a loose cannon he is. Through a convoluted bit of exposition, Jimmy's own son Michael (Joel Kinnaman) gets caught in the middle of some intrigue, witnesses Danny doing some bad things, so Danny decides he's got to protect himself. Long story short, Danny winds up dead by Jimmy's hand.
It's telling that within seconds of gunning down his best friend's kid, Jimmy's first act is to call Shawn and tell him the news, without preamble. That's who he is. There is no hesitation or dissembling with him. He offers his own life in exchange for his son's. But Shawn is old school, and needs for others to suffer in order to quench his own.
The rest of the movie turns into one long big chase scene, with Jimmy and Michael, who have long been estranged for obvious reasons, trying to keep each other alive. A bunch of mob goons are after them, along with the police, a goodly portion of whom are on Shawn's payroll. The only cop Jimmy is able to trust is Detective Harding (Vincent D'Onofrio), who despises him for beating the rap so long.
This stuff is engaging enough, though it eventually becomes an indistinguishable mix of running, gunfire and beefy guys grappling with each other. Rapper/actor Common turns up as an icy assassin brought in to clean things up. He uses a fancy gun rig, night vision lenses and other modern gear, acting as Jimmy's latter-day doppelganger.
I liked a lot about "Run All Night" while still wishing it had found a better way to balance its various story elements. The scenes with Neeson and Harris facing off with each other are the finest, two grizzled partners in crime who can't scrub off the sins of the past.
But they end up getting buried in all the bang-bang scenes -- unnecessarily buttressed with "bullet time" CG and topsy-turvy editing. The weighty business about honor and debts is there, but it's grace notes and echoes of a superior movie. It's still a rousing flick, but boy, shoulda coulda.
"Selma" has been mislabeled as "the Martin Luther King Jr. movie," which it is not, just as the three months of demonstrations for black voting rights in 1965 Alabama was not merely his doing. (Others had been organizing and protesting for two years before King arrived.)
The drama, directed by Ava DuVernay from a screenplay by Paul Webb, is a bit stodgy at times -- characters sometimes feel like they're reciting speeches instead of talking to each other. It also takes a bunch of well-publicized liberties with the historical record, such as depicting President Lyndon Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) as MLK's chief antagonist in opposing the Voting Rights Act, when the two coordinated closely.
(And it was Robert Kennedy who unleashed the FBI to spy on King on his cohorts, not LBJ.)
Still, it depicts several moments possessing great power, such as the recreation of the "Bloody Sunday" event in which state troopers ran down defenseless non-violent protestors marching from Selma to Montgomery. DuVernay brings to life the incredible struggles during the civil rights era, especially the pervasive sense of African-American being marginalized and oppressed.
Some of the quieter moments are the best, such as when a workaday woman (Oprah Winfrey) attempts to register to vote and is given an impossible citizenship test by the court clerk. (After correctly answering how many county judges are in Alabama, 67, she is instructed, "Name them.") The reality of Jim Crow would not begin to fade until hearts and minds were changed, not just laws passed.
I'm a bit ambivalent about the performance of David Oyelowo as King. Impressions are the shallowest portion of capturing a public figure's persona, but MLK's musical cadences during his speeches are so inextricably linked to his iconography that it's distracting when Oyelowo conspicuously avoids them. (Imagine someone playing Winston Churchill without the gravelly growl.)
Undoubtedly, some of this criticism is unfair. King is such a giant in our national heritage, the closest thing we have to a secular saint, that any attempt to depict him is fraught with all sorts of challenges. We bring so much baggage into the theater with us that watching the film becomes an exercise in separating our conception of him with what we see onscreen.
The movie depicts King as a man of great conviction but also one of cold calculation, who knew he was putting others in harm's way -- counting on bloodshed, even, to capture headlines and newscasts. In one somewhat shocking moment, he cheers the presence of a backward hillbilly sheriff, since he can be counted upon to split skulls and generate sympathy.
Webb's screenplay does a poor job of working in the other civil rights giants who organized the Selma protests, including James Bevel (Common) and Hosea Williams (Wendell Pierce). They wind up as a vague chorus of hangers-on and also-rans.
Stephan James stands out as John Lewis, then a college student beaten bloody during the march (and now a Congressman), as does Keith Stansfield as Jimmie Lee Jackson, murdered in cold blood by police.
It's rather disappointing that "Selma," directed by an African-American woman, does a rather poor job of representing black women in other than window dressing roles. Winfrey (also a producer) has little more than a cameo, and Lorraine Toussaint is a frequent, vivid screen presence who gets to say astonishing little. (Other than one contrived-sounding speech, she barely has any lines.)
Carmel Ejoga as Coretta Scott King is largely relegated to the home front, clutching and fretting over threats to her husband and children.
"Selma" is the sort of movie that earns respect but not ardor. It tackles a big subject, fleshes it out reasonably well, but labors to find the passion and beating hearts of those brave marchers in Selma.
Bad movies are less pleasant to watch than mediocre ones, but it’s a lot more fun to review a terrible film than one that you were totally indifferent to.
With a stinker, you just hone in on what you hated. Movies like “The Odd Life of Timothy Green,” sort of lie there, inert. It’s like the difference between complaining about a food you detest and trying to describe eating something that is completely tasteless.
I had absolutely no emotional connection to “The Odd Life of Timothy Green” -- and that’s not a good spot for a touchy-feely modern fable to be in.
The tale of a childless couple who literally dream up their ideal kid, this is supposed to be one of those laughing-through-the-tears deals where the audience walks out feeling wistful and, most of all, moved.
I’m all up for a good mushy movie, but this one is softer in the head than the heart.
Writer/director Peter Hedges has made some quality films -- “About a Boy,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” “Pieces of April” – but loses his way here with some often lazy storytelling.
The screenplay is like a Cliff’s Notes version of a real one, skimming over important events or exchanges as if it’s describing what happens rather than actually showing it.
This movie doesn’t earn its moments.
Often, the film feels like it’s going over a checklist. That’s perhaps inevitable, since Cindy and Jim Green (Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton) write down the qualities of their ideal child and put them into a box they bury in their garden. One magical storm later, Timothy appears, covered in mud and 10 years old, and he starts marking off all the moments of the life his parents have written for him.
What’s really odd is that no one, from the school principle to the Greens’ family members, questions the sudden arrival of Timothy.
Things move along so hurriedly that 45 minutes into the film, Timothy has already experienced birth, bullying, true love and a death in the family.
The person who perishes is played by a veteran character actor, and it’s a cheap moment -- it feels like he was cast just so he could die.
I liked CJ Adams as Timothy. He has a frank, intelligent way of looking at the other characters, as if daring them to prevaricate or dissemble. Timothy was born with a bunch of bright green leaves growing around his ankles, so he has to keep his socks pulled up to prevent the discovery of his Big Secret.
Not surprisingly, it’s a girl who does. Joni (Odeya Rush) is several years older than Timothy and a loner, cruising around on her bike near the soccer games attended by seemingly everyone in the small town of Stanleyville, “The Pencil Capital of the World.”
Like the other relationships in the movie, their connection is more a marker for a deep bond than the actual depiction of one. We see them hanging around together, going off into the woods to do what not, and we’re supposed to assume something meaningful has passed between them.
Certainly the adults are not any more fun to hang around. Hedges has constructed a sprawling cast of grown-ups who all behave in petty and juvenile ways.
Cindy’s sister loves to rub her perfect trio of children in the Green’s faces. Jim makes Timothy join the soccer team because his own dad (David Morse) never came to his games when he was a kid.
The soccer coach (Common), recognizing how terrible Timothy is at sports, makes him the water boy and, when forced by circumstance to put him in the big game, instructs him not to move.
There’s a whole distracting subplot of how the Stanleyville pencil factor is in danger of going under, due to the tired leadership of the Crudstaffs, the town royalty (including Ron Livingston and Diane Wiest).
Better to erase the whole thing.
The final fate of Timothy is never in doubt. The framing story has the Greens talking to some adoption officials, where they use the story of their time with Timothy as evidence of their earnest qualification to be parents. So we know from the outset he’s just some kind of enchanted practice child.
Perhaps that’s why this movie feels like nothing is at stake.
By my count, "Date Night" has about five or six decent laughs in it. Most of these are throwaway jokes, fleeting in their amusements. So the question you have to ask is, is it worth sitting through 1½ hours of stale comedy in order to get to those sporadic chuckles?
My answer is no, but maybe you have a higher tolerance for mediocrity.
What's most disappointing about this lame comedy is that its two stars, Tina Fey and Steve Carell, are some of the sharpest comedic tools we have in the shed these days. But their talent for funny television ("30 Rock" and "The Office," respectively) has translated into uneven careers at the movies.
Here they play Claire and Phil Foster, a middle-aged, middle-class couple struggling to stay connected with each other amid the hectic distractions of jobs and kids. Their solution is a magic date night in New York City to wash away their troubles.
Unfortunately, some criminals confuse them with another couple, resulting in a night on the run from both hoods and cops, and a bunch of encounters with strange people. Mark Wahlberg shows up as a helpful security expert with a one-joke spiel about never wearing a shirt.
It's an idiot plot based on mistaken identity, complete with a classic MacGuffin: A computer memory card that contains the key to ... something important.
Let's put it this way: If "Date Night" were somebody's first date, I doubt there'd be a second.
Video extras for "Date Night" continue a disturbing trend I've noticed lately: Good movies arriving with a paucity of goodies ("Avatar"), while the drek comes with loads of features ("The Book of Eli").
The DVD version has an audio commentary by director Shawn Levy, an extended car chase, scene, gag reels, public service announcements and a couple of featurettes about Levy directing the film.
In addition to these, the Blu-ray has several deleted and extended scenes, Fey and Carell's camera tests, snippets of the cast reflecting on disaster dates from their real lives, and a digital copy of the film.
"Just Wright" is a love story that's a little bit old-fashioned, a little bit sweet and a little bit bitchy. It actually could have used more bitchiness.
It's sort of a modern take-off on "Cyrano" -- a less than conventionally attractive hero acts as matchmaker for his gorgeous friend to woo the ravishing lady of quality he himself secretly adores. Except the genders are switched around, and there's no feeding of poetry lines.
Queen Latifah plays Leslie Wright, a 35-year-old physical therapist who hasn't found the right guy. Laid back, a rabid sports fan (especially basketball) and self-confident, Leslie is the girl every guy wants to be best friends with -- just not fall in love with.
Her godsister Morgan (Paula Patton) is equally interested in basketball -- not for the game, but for the opportunity to land an NBA player as a husband. One senses that any player would do, so long as his bank account is fat. Morgan has no job and no interest in finding one: Marrying rich is her vocation.
One day after a New Jersey Nets game, Leslie bumps into Scott McNight (Common), the team's star point guard, at a gas station. He can't figure out where the fuel tank lid is on his new Maybach. After she hooks him up, he invites her to his birthday party. (Although I wondered how a gal driving a rusty old Mustang has any expertise about a brand of car that starts around $350,000.)
Morgan insists on tagging along to the party, of course, and the minute Scott lays eyes on her, he's in full pursuit mode. Leslie is clearly disappointed, thinking they had a spark between them, but is big enough of a woman to stay out of the way.
Then Scott blows out his knee, and it appears his season, and maybe his career, are over. Leslie is hired to help him with rehab and Morgan, sensing greener pastures elsewhere, dumps Scott via a note on his bedstand. She even returns her engagement ring, which I thought out of character.
It's not too crazy a guess that Leslie and Scott grow close during his grueling rehabilitation, and he starts to realize that having your best friend for a mate isn't such a bad idea after all.
After Scott is back tearing up the basketball court, Morgan makes an 11th-hour return to claim her man again. I'll leave the outcome to those who buy a ticket. One wonders, though, what Morgan was doing during the intervening months. Certainly not working, so what did she do for money? Was she giving try-outs to other NBA ballers for her one-woman team?
Director Sanaa Hamri and screenwriter Michael Elliot deliver a reasonably entertaining romance, and I certainly enjoyed all the cameos but real NBA players like Dwayne Wade and Dwight Howard. Common, a rapper by trade, looks fairly comfortable in the basketball scenes -- although the moments when he dunks are carefully framed so as not to show where his feet are.
Queen Latifah has a wonderful onscreen presence -- audiences instinctively like her and root for her. Common, however, just doesn't have the acting chops for a romantic comedy. He smiles a lot -- I mean a lot, almost Joker-like -- but the emotion never seems to reach his eyes. His line readings are stiff and clunky. Perhaps he's got a future in the movies, but right now I'm not seeing it.
I wish "Just Wright" could have been more a meditation on attraction versus substance. There are a lot of terrific women out there who are not considered beautiful by society's standards, and spend their days alone when they could make someone very happy. (Vice-versa the other way.) I would have loved to see some scene where Scott has started to act upon his feelings for Leslie, and some of his buddies rag on him for dating someone who's not model-gorgeous.
I suppose it's too much to ask for contemplation of substance-vs.-looks in a movie that just wants to entertain.
By the way, you know "Just Wright" is a work of fiction because it depicts the New Jersey Nets making it to the NBA Finals to compete for a championship. The real-life team flirted with the worst record in league history this past season, and was just sold to a Russian oligarch.
