Three out of four stars (Rated R for pervasive language, including crude and sexual references) Running time: 105 minutes. Reviewed at The Woodlands Tinseltown 17 on March 20.
A scheduling quirk forced me to take a pass on the Julia Roberts adventure-thriller “Duplicity” to see instead the bromance comedy “I Love You, Man.”
First things first—I had no idea what a “bromance” was until my much more hip wife explained it to me. MTV has been airing a reality show called “Bromance” described at Imdb.com as: “Guys compete in a series of challenges that test the limits of male bonding for a chance to become part of a reality star’s entourage.” Huh?
Further, she explained, there was another reality show titled “Paris Hilton’s My New BFF” in which the promiscuous socialite auditioned young ladies to become her new BFF—that’s Best Friend Forever, for the uninitiated.
This modern day lingo is so confusing to a Truman baby (as in Harry S). I’ve maintained a thirty-year close, trusting friendship with a buddy in North Carolina—he calls me “Mr. Bowes” and I call him “Mr. Pitney,” names we adopted from a series of radio commercials in the early 80’s for the postage meter company. Yet I’ve never thought of our relationship as a “man-crush.” That sounds rather violent to me.
In the movie “I Love You, Man,” we are introduced to late 20-something straight arrow Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd), a Los Angeles realtor. He proposes marriage to the fetching Zooey Rice (Rashida Jones of “The Office”), who immediately hits the cell phone to inform her network of gal pals.
The problem with Peter, however, is that he has no close male friends—not a dude, bro or homeboy to be found. Someone has to be his best man for the upcoming June wedding. An acquaintance sums up Peter’s plight with, “I honestly believe that his best friend is his mom.”
Peter auditions men to see if one might emerge to become his best dude and serve as best man at his wedding. While that doesn’t like enough to justify the liberation of ten bucks from your wallet, it is.
After a series of hilarious “man-dates” arranged by Peter’s gay brother Robbie (Andy Samberg), Peter has an innocent encounter with the slovenly Sydney Fife (Jason Segel, the same actor who displayed his private parts in Judd Apatow’s “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”).
They meet at the open house of Lou Ferrigno’s mansion. If Peter gets a healthy commission check from the sale of the Ferrigno estate, he can buy a tract of land and build a dream home for Zooey—or something like that.
What drives the movie is the bond that forms between this modern day Odd Couple—stick in the mud Peter, matched with the hang loose Sydney, who will remind many of Bill Murray’s offbeat character in “Caddyshack.” Sydney, purporting to be an investments broker, lives in a small house complete with a “man-cave” featuring a bong, drum set, guitars and amps, and his self-designed “masturbation chair” (don’t ask).
The script from director John Hamburg and Larry Levin is formulaic, but the laughs flow from the manly man things that Peter discovers as his friendship with the complete opposite Sydney grows. One thing they have in common: a complete adoration of the Canadian rock band Rush.
This is Judd Apatow material with Apatow nowhere to be found. But it is funny.
March 25, 2009 at 6:41 pm |
Did you see the late late show with Rashida Jones. Nevermind, I had a double take on your consensus. Amid gather information of her wiki lifestory arrays the fringe of her little apperance on Freaks and Geeks. Well in a nutshell, I can only input a blurb because I got my hash pipe. I also want to see Monsters vs Aliens this week because Seth Rogen has been my favorite actor since working with Judd Apatow. Seth does the voice of B.O.B. “I think that jello gave me a fake phone number”. Freaks & Geeks – Fake IDs on youtube and, “I’m just about to get a shipment of candian driver licence” reminded me how much Jason Schwartzman looks like Billy Marks the ping pong pro ‘Billy’s Balls 2′ on youtube.