Man Up

Reno 5/16/2024 3:18:28 PM 8.4

> Sometimes the right thing comes from the wrong. Another excellent Simon Pegg movie. This is his fourth movie I'm seeing inside a month and I enjoyed them all, especially 'Hector and Search for Happiness' was my favourite. This was a romantic-comedy that takes place in just one evening. A story about blind dating, boy meets girl, they spend a quality time by sharing the details and later turn against each other. So a recycled old theme that was very well crafted. If you see the poster what does the tagline says, well, that's what I was looking for. I had 'Date Night' in my mind, and thought it might be an altered British version. Other than that I was truly not expecting anything special, but a normal comedy, maybe sloppy. And it does only until a certain stage of the story, but 30 minutes later it overturns. So the best narration briskly took a slide towards joyous ride in the remaining 1 hour. I think, for right now Simon Pegg is my favourite British actor and you know the reason that I stated in the first paragraph. Lake Bell, who donned in a director's hat in her recent feature was so good on a 34 year-old role she played in this film. Together they were so perfect, one of the best on-screen couple with a wonderful chemistry. It was a story of two middle aged odd guys whose lives were shattered for some reasons. They meet accidentally and bond well. Once the truth got out, they repel away, but they both have something in common and that puts them on a test once they decide to correct the mistakes they have made. > "After this shot I will stronger, > wiser and finally moving on." At some stage in the life every person will going to be in their 30s and 40s (and some were had been there) like the couple from this film. The life won't be the same for everybody like that shown here, but can be understood, because that's the experience that define it. Despite romance crisis about the middle-aged guys, many dialogues were excellently written and funny as well. A couple of lines really made me worry and I can't just ignore by saying it was just a flick. Kind of easy to begin a story, like we're standing in an open ground and decide to move any direction we want in our 360º angle. But development is the key factor in the movie making and this film outshines. The real challenge was how to end it and once again it was a beautiful conclusion, even though I knew it was so cliché for a romantic-comedy. Overally looked a fairy-tale like theme, which irresistible if you love touching romantic stories. Definitely a good movie from the director of 'The Inbetweeners' and I'm going to recommend it for those who also liked the similar movies below I mentioned. But remember it's only cinematically amusing than being realistic. 7½/10

Peter McGinn 7/26/2022 12:28:04 PM 8.4

This was okay overall. The leads seemed like an unlikely pair at the outset but they started to connect and feel more like a potential couple. The film seemed to contain scenes from the largely forgotten era of gross-out movies, the dialogue ay least, with too many blow job jokes and references. Once or twice and you might get a smile out of me, but after that it just gets tiresome. That and normalizing a guy who is a stalker and an all around perv. The story was a little too nice to him in the end. But there was enough humor, wit and charm to keep me watching. I recognized a couple of the performers but wasn’t sure from where. Upon looking them up I found they had both been in Jane Austen-based movies over 20 years ago. One of the pleasures of watching British films and tv and seeing familiar faces reappearing. So even though I stuck with it, I probably won’t watch this again. There are just too many really good rom-coms out there.