A date with destiny...
3 stars (out of 5)
Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Mark Wahlberg, James Franco, Mila Kunis, Jimmi Simpson, William Fichtner, Ray Liotta, Mark Ruffalo
Rating: (M)
If you wrote, produced and acted in your own television series, your first thought when holidays rolled around would not be "Goody, now I can do a movie", but Tina Fey of 30 Rock is different. Date Night (Hoyts) teams her with Steve Carell, another television star with a good work ethic.
They play married couple Claire and Phil Foster, who are starting to fear for their relationship.
They decide to jazz up their normal date night by going for a meal at a hot new restaurant, Claw. Of course, a joint like Claw is not interested in a middle-aged couple from New Jersey and they are sent to wait in the bar.
Their luck changes when a couple fail to arrive for their reservation and the Fosters pretend to be them. That is not a great move as the Tripplehorns are a pair of crooks who have stolen something from the Mob.
Claire and Phil spend the rest of the night bonding as they run from the mob in increasingly zany ways.
Date Night is not a complete write-off but when you have comedy actors of Fey's and Carell's quality you expect greatness, not uneven lurching from one set-up to another. There is evidence on the blooper reel that Fey at least was trying; maybe next holidays she should write her own movie.
Best thing: The sequences that do come alive are really, really funny, but it takes a long time to get to them.
Worst thing: I started to develop an unnatural obsession with Steve Carell's make-up. If the film had been funnier I would not have had time to notice just how much he has on.
See it with: Your dinner reservation booked.
- Christine Powley.
