Date Night

I'll admit up front that I was not really looking forward to Date Night, even though it featured two very talented comic actors in the leads. The movie looked like a perfect opportunity to waste their talents in a standard and predictable premise that would undermine their comic timing, and run them through a string of action comedy cliches. I grew more disheartened when I discovered the director was Shawn Levy, a filmmaker who has not exactly been a mark of quality in the past. (His past efforts include the Cheaper by the Dozen and Pink Panther remakes, and the Night at the Museum films). Add all this to the fact that recent action comedies like The Bounty Hunter and Cop Out had been bad experiences, and you can understand if I wasn't exactly walking into the theater with a spring in my step.

Well, I must say, I love it when a film surprises me. Date Night is everything those previously mentioned misfires are not. It's smart, it's energetic, it's creative with its action sequences (there's an elaborate and very funny car chase sequence that made me laugh harder than any other movie so far this year), and at only 88 minutes, it's breezy and quick enough to be a fun time. Most of all, it knows how to use its lead actors, Steve Carell and Tina Fey. Not only are they both funny here, and get many chances to show off their gift for improv dialogue, but we can believe that they are a loving but bored married couple looking for a night out in the city. They have a very natural chemistry, and act like they've been together for years. The movie is also smart to make them real characters that we can get behind. They're not just funny, they're sympathetic. Plus, no matter how crazy the situations that the movie puts them into get, they never lose sight of their characters, or start doing things that we couldn't believe their characters would do in the present situation.

Carell and Fey play Phil and Claire Foster. They're an ordinary couple whose lives revolve around their kids and their careers. A usual night out for them is going to the local steak house, and amusing themselves by guessing what other couples seated at the tables around them are thinking, or going to a book club event at a neighbor's house. One night, Phil decides they should do something different. They drive into Manhattan, and try to get a table at a trendy seafood restaurant called Claw. The scenes depicting this modern, ultra-trendy, and snobby restaurant are so dead-on perfect, it would be considered a parody if it wasn't so true and realistic in every regard. Phil and Claire arrive with no reservation, so naturally, the place is packed and they have to wait at the bar. Phil becomes worried that their special night is going to be a bust, so you can't really blame him for what he does next. A waitress is calling for a party of two called the "Tripplehorns". The mysterious couple are obviously a no-show, so Phil seizes the opportunity, and calls out that his wife and him are the Tripplehorns. They get a table, and the night can finally begin.

Not long after they are seated, two men approach their table. This brings the "mistaken identity" element that all screwball action comedies of this sort must contain. The men (played by Jimmi Simpson and rap artist Common) are dirty cops working for a New York crime boss (Ray Liota, hamming it up as usual). Apparently, the real Tripplehorns have stolen a flash drive with incriminating evidence, and the men want it back. Phil and Claire obviously have no clue what's going on, but get dragged into an elaborate crime plot of blackmail and shady elected officials with dirty secrets. The movie gives us the expected string of chase scenes, shootouts, and sequences where Phil and Claire will have to do things they never dreamed, like breaking into an archive office in order to get information on a person. But, it's all done with a lot more wit, energy, and intelligence than the norm. Part of the credit goes to the screenplay by Josh Klausner (Shrek the Third). Even more credit is due, I think, to Carell and Fey, who obviously are having a blast playing off of each other, and improvising a lot of their lines.

They carry a lot of the film effortlessly, but fortunately, the movie provides them with a lot of strong support. Mark Wahlberg shows up as a hi-tech computer expert/playboy who refuses to wear a shirt, James Franco and Mila Kunis have a memorable scene as the real Tripplehorns, and get a lot of laughs, and the talented Taraji P. Henson is a police detective who finds it suspicious that this suburban couple from New Jersey keep on getting involved in all these crime scenes. Other strong names in the cast include Mark Ruffalo and Kristen Wiig, who both get small roles. Like the lead actors, the movie is smart enough to use the talents of its cast, and doesn't waste them. I also admired how no one in the movie seems to be playing dumb. Everyone here is at least of average intelligence, and dragged in over their heads by a series of events that happen in a single night. Even the villains are depicted as serious threats, instead of the bungling comic buffoons we sometimes get in these movies.

Date Night gets a lot of things right that similar movies just don't seem to understand. The characters are likable and drive the plot, not the stunts and special effects. The movie also finds humor in its dialogue, not with people getting hit with stuff. (There is a running gag about Fey's character always running into open drawers, but it's a small one.) That it can avoid these dangerous pitfalls is admirable enough. The fact that it's actually engaging and we find ourselves caring about the characters is even more so. This is not a great movie, but in its own way, it's a small miracle that it turned out as well as it did, considering everything that could have gone wrong.

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