Fey and Carell Make Date Night Memorable
Phil (Steve Carell) and Claire Foster (Tina Fey) have come to a startling conclusion. It appears that the longtime married couple has somehow transitioned from lovers into roommates, their world filled with so many other than things then each other that they’ve almost forgotten why they fell in love in the first place.
Tina Fey and Steve Carell in 20th Century Fox's Date Night
With that being so they’ve decided tonight is going to be different. They’ve hired the babysitter. They’ve put on they’re best clothes. They’ve even decided to go into the heart of Manhattan and leave the banal comfort of New Jersey to experience one of the city’s newest and swankiest restaurants.
After they steal another couple’s reservation in order to get a table this effort to rekindle a cooling love affair the evening takes a turn neither Foster could have anticipated. Soon the pair find themselves in a Hithcockian nightmare of mistaken identities, out of control automobiles, half-naked former secret agents and the cacophonous fury of gunfire. But what’s date night without a little adventure, an evening of life and death maybe just the thing the twosome needs to put their marriage back on solid footing.
Date Night is overly plotted, extremely silly, way too juvenile, much too pleased with its own absurdity and about as whimsical as a John Tesh record. It is also, at times at least, very funny. Thanks to stars Carell and Fey this latest effort from Night at the Museum maestro Shawn Levy is far more of a good time than it probably has any right to be. The two of them elevate the material to a level it never would have ascended to otherwise, the actors proving that chemistry is king and that two comedians working in complete symmetry one with the other can sometimes make even two-day-old hamburger taste like Filet Mignon.
A bizarre cross between Into the Night, North by Northwest and After Hours the movie is a mish-mash of romantic comedy and mistaken identity clichés that somehow come across pretty darn interesting and fresh must of the way through. There is a somewhat engaging devil-may-care attitude to it all that’s hard to dislike, and at just under 90-minutes Levy never allows the proceedings to drag on to the point they’d become annoying or tiresome.
Not that there is anything new or different going on. Josh Klausner’s (The 4th Floor) script doesn’t rise too far above sitcom level. In fact, considering both Fey and Carell’s television gigs are more inspired and wittily conceived than this film is that comparison might be a little unfair, “The Office” and “30 Rock” packing far more intelligence and hysterical lunacy than this does. When the narrative takes the center of the stage Klausner’s story struggles mightily to come up with a reason to exist, random car chases and shootouts plopped in for no worthwhile reason that I could surmise.
Thankfully the majority of the picture could care less about plot mechanics. Instead, Levy focuses things directly upon Fey and Carell, and to say the two deliver would be a humongous understatement. The majority of their dialogues feel as close unscripted as any I could have hoped for, the two engaging in such glorious syncopation that watching them quickly becomes a totally immersive pleasure. There is a level of unbridled improvisation (whether it actually was or not) that feels fresh and alive making the Fosters as close to flesh and blood as my own next door neighbors, and as silly and asinine as the story around them became thanks to them I found myself willing to suspend disbelief to its breaking point.
There’s plenty else worthy of praise, not the least of which is an awesome cameo from James Franco (and he’s not the only superstar presence here – not by a long shot) that nearly steals the picture, but the simple truth is that without Fey and Carell I wouldn’t be giving Date Night the time of day let alone a recommendation. This movie is dumb, sometimes to the point of annoyance, but because of them I admit to having a semi-rollicking good time, and if these two wanted to become this generation’s Hepburn and Tracy I wouldn’t just be okay with that I’d probably let out a silent cheer in amenable jubilation.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
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