FILM REVIEW: THE OTHER GUYS

Sony Pictures
Now Showing

I’ve mentioned it in other reviews, but Will Ferrell is on my list of funny men I simply don’t find funny. No surprises then that I failed to enjoy his latest comedy, The Other Guys, though admittedly, the longer the 107 minute (is that all?) film ran the more my defences were worn down; I may have even laughed once or twice. Which means if you’re a fan of Ferrell, then you’ll probably find this buddy cop, action-comedy a veritable laugh fest.

Ferrell is Allen Gamble, a forensic accountant with the NYPD assigned to a desk and a hot headed partner, Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg), who’s been saddled with desk duties following his shooting of baseball star Derek Jeter (no, I don't know who he is either). Hoitz is the kind of guy who is quick to suspect drug barons behind every misdemeanour and even quicker to lose his temper. Writer-director Adam McKay, a frequent Ferrell collaborator, says he wanted to exaggerate the detective Wahlberg played in Martin Scorcese’s The Departed (2006), making the actor’s Oscar nomination for that role even more laughable.

So The Other Guys is essentially an odd couple film with the very two different policemen forced to work together to solve a case, something involving investment fraud or some such which is being perpetrated by Wall Street banker David Ershon, played by Brit comedian, Steve Coogan, who effortlessly steals every scene he’s in, which is appropriate given he’s also stolen $32 billion and the Chechnians, Nigerians and Anne Heche want it back. So ensues a barrage of car chases, shoot-outs, absurdist humour and enough crudity to keep teenage boys of all ages amused.

It’s a relatively wit-free zone, despite some good sportsmanship by the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Michael Keaton and Eva Mendes as Ferrell’s ‘plain looking’ wife.

But to its credit, The Other Guys manages to produce more anger and finger pointing at Wall Street shenanigans and government myopia than Oliver Stone’s forthcoming Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; the closing credits featuring animated sequences outlining how pyramid schemes work and the difference in salary between a CEO or banker and your average beat cop. Sobering facts to mull over as you wipe the laugh tears from your eyes (or not).

FILM REVIEW: DESPICABLE ME

Universal Pictures
Now Showing

It seems today that it is all too easy to become a hero, or at least be labelled as one. Apparently Dr Chris Brown, the Bondi Vet, is an ‘Aussie Hero’, according to Channel 10 promos anyway. So for those with a bit more ambition and who wish to stand out from the mediocre crowd, becoming a villain, or better, a super villain, presents more of a challenge and probably much more credibility.

But in a post-9/11 world, it takes a lot to be considered truly evil and Gru (voiced by Steve Carell with an East European accent), wants badly to be the baddest of them all, if only to gain the approval of his hard to please mother (an atypical Julie Andrews). When one of the pyramids of Giza is stolen the stakes are upped, so Gru hits on a much bigger scheme: to steal the moon. All it requires is a shrink ray and loan from the Bank of Evil.

But Gru has a rival for baddest badass, Vector (Jason Segel), who having stolen the pyramid also gets his hands on said shrink ray, stealing it from Gru only moments after he himself has stolen it. To get it back, Gru hits on the idea of adopting three orphan girls whose cookie-selling front will allow him to break into Vector’s not-so-secret hideout (observe the stolen pyramid with painted on skyline in the backyard), steal the shrink ray and carry out his lunar looting escapade.

I found the structure of Despicable Me to be a bit chaotic in the early stages before it settled down somewhat in the second half. That’s when Gru inevitably begins to view the three girls he’s taken in as more than a means to an end. Success, whether in the pursuit of good or evil, would appear to be hollow without someone to share it with and Gru’s heart of ice is slowly melted.

Thankfully the filmmakers don’t lay the schmaltz on too thick. On the other hand, I could have done without the antics of Gru’s minions, diminutive yellow mutant blobs who speak in gibberish and are there, under the guise of doing Gru’s dirty work (did somebody say ‘slave labour’?), to provide comic pratfalls. Unnecessary, too, is the 3D but then 3D is unnecessary almost all of the time. See it in 2D and stick it to the despicable powers-that-be.

FILM REVIEW: PLEASE GIVE

Roadshow Films
Now Showing

Middle class guilt isn’t a subject given much attention in films, certainly not mainstream ones lest they be Woody Allen’s. Guilt isn’t sexy nor is it funny, at least not on paper. But some directors, like Allen, know where the joke lies. Writer-director Nicole Holofcener may not be going for the funny bone outright with her new film, Please Give, but she’s well aware of the inherent humour in the anxieties of the well-to-do, anxious for doing well.  

Kate (ever-reliable Catherine Keener and star of each of Holofcener’s films) runs a New York antique furniture store with her husband, Alex (Oliver Platt). They procure their stock from deceased estates, usually snapping up items for a bargain and selling them on for a song. The pair live in a nice apartment but have bought the one next door, planning to expand once the occupant departs, literally.

That neighbour is a crotchety old woman named Andra (Anne Morgan Guilbert, unrecognisable from her most famous role, that of Granma Yetta on TV’s The Nanny), whose only real connection to the outside world (not surprisingly she’s driven everyone else away - or to their grave) are her granddaughters, Mary (Amanda Peet) and Rebecca (Rebecca Hall), the latter devoting much of her time to Andra’s welfare; Mary is the self obsessed sister who could care less if the grandmother who raised her dies.

The sisters’ and Kate and Alex’s lives become uncomfortably entwined following a dinner the couple host to celebrate Andra’s birthday, with Holofcener broadening her focus to reveal more about Mary and Alex having focussed primarily on Rebecca and Kate up to this point. But they remain central: Rebecca as she juggles the demands of her grandmother with her own job and the beginnings of a new romance, and Kate as she struggles with the guilt she feels for the comfortable life her business has afforded her. Kate wants to do more than write a cheque but doesn't have the emotional fortitude to do so.

That may not sound like much of a dilemma or a driving force for either drama or comedy, and admittedly it's slight though enjoyable. But Holofcener gets strong performances from her cast, especially Keener and Hall.

FILM REVIEW: GOING THE DISTANCE

Roadshow Films
Now Showing

This latest romantic comedy comes as a pleasant surprise and mostly because, unlike most rom-coms of late, there's no gunfire or car chases to keep our lovers preoccupied; the tyranny of distance is the only evil threatening to keep the couple apart. There's also a lot more rom in this com, no doubt due to real life on-again-off-again couple, Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, playing the leads.

Garrett (Long) and Erin (Barrymore) meet-cute in a New York bar where he's kind of mourning the end of another relationship (apparently it happens to him a lot), and she (Barrymore), an intern at the New York Sentinel newspaper, is bummed by her inability to impress her editor. There's an instant spark and a one night stand ensues.

But at breakfast the next morning, the two decide there may be more going on and agree to see each other over the next six weeks but on a casual basis: that's when Erin's internship ends and she heads home to San Francisco. By the time that date rolls around, the two are pretty much in love and so agree to try a long distance relationship.

Director Nanette Burstein, who comes from a documentary background (she made the excellent American Teen), effectively depicts the ebb and flow of a new romance, helped invariably by the chemistry between her two leads. There's also an honesty to the dialogue between the two and the concerns they have about their relationship. Honest, too, are the conversations between Erin and her sister, Corinne (Christina Applegate), which run the gamut of heartfelt to blue.

Not so believable is the dialgoue between Garrett and his two buddies, Dan (Charlie Day) and Box (Jason Sudeikis), which smacks more of the Apatow style of man-child comedy. Do guys really talk like this? There's also one glaring concession to easy laughs: a scene at a tanning salon is both unnecessary and unfunny given that it's pretty much all in the trailer and not funny then either.

My heckles were also being raised when, about three quarters in, it looked as though the film was suggesting that if sacrifices were to be made it would be she and not he who would have to make them. Thankfully those fears were allayed and the denouement is, surprisingly for a Hollywood rom com, more realistically satisfying than happily ever after.