Tank (Dane Cook) is a professional asshole. Men hire him to take their recent exes on a horrendous date so that they’ll reconsider them and give them a second chance. When his best friend asks him to do this for him he’s hesitant but does it. Unfortunately things go to far with the girl and he ends up falling for her.
So far so formulaic. And it is relatively formulaic. The plot does twist and turn a fair bit though so it doesn’t SEEM as conventional. It fucks with the formula in the middle, but you still know what’s probably going to happen throughout.
I had a preconceived opinion of Dane Cook going in. A little unfairly as I haven’t seen him in anything but small side parts and actually have a few of his movies on the rental list. This is the first I’ve seen him in as the lead. I figured he was an unfunny douche bag. It turns out he’s actually a funny douche bag. And not a terrible actor by a long shot.
As I said it’s a formulaic movie, and it has a couple of glaring holes in it. The transition from reel two to three (around the hour mark in human speak) feels like its been trimmed. And there’s another part 15 minutes later that has the same issue. I’ve experienced problems with writing before where you get gnarled up, bang something simple out and intend to come back and untangle it later so your not bogged down and can get the story out. This may have happened, then the writers got a phone call and forgot to fix it.
It also wastes Alec Baldwin’s character. He’s found a new home in comedy, and he’s a funny guy. He’s a bit part in this. In fact most of the characters outside of the two main leads are quite sidelined. But it’s a stupid comedy not a character piece.
Cook carries it well with a realistic performance of a complete dick who isn’t actually a complete dick and might just be buying in to his own press a bit too much. There’s some genuinely entertaining stuff in this movie and its worth a look.
Just don’t expect it to re-invent anything too dramatically. There’s only so many wheels, and as long as you bring a little something to the table its okay to use the same old spokes. I think they might run through the formula twice actually…
OH and it’s pretty light on what I’d consider gross out stuff if you’re as sick of that shit as I am. Enough people eating poop then vomiting it on grandmothers people, it’s not funny (that doesn’t happen btw, but some comedy writer will probably steal it now)
Next up: My Bloody Valentine. In 2D so it might lose a fair bit of enjoyment. Couldn’t have seen it in 3D as I don’t think my local cinema HAD 3D when it came out. Vue, just fucking excellent as always. We don’t try because you have no choice.
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