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I'm on a Cillian kick lately, so I tried this little number out. Though it's as cute as it can be for a romcom, it's got quite a few rough spots. I'd say editing, some of the writing, maybe, er, the direction now and then. The married couple got on my nerves sometimes, yet I really enjoyed the banter between Michael Panes and Jason Sudeikis.
Still, though I find it very surprising that Cillian Murphy would do a film of this sort (a chatty, slapsticky, quirky American comedy), given his resume, he brings something to it that would have been missing otherwise. Though his role of Neil is primarily reactionary (to Lucy Liu's nonstop pranks), there were some moments of his own that had me in stitches (pretending to be a rockstar smoking a joint, for instance!) Lucy Liu (am I spelling it right, I hope?) is riotous as Violet, the girl who immediately draws Neil, a film dork who owns a video store that specializes in rare, cult and classic movies that aren't avail on DVD, into her world of bor-ophobia and endless mischief. Almost every scene holds a surprise. If you don't laugh during the scene where the 2 noirish cops question Neil in his office, you may have the wrong sense of humour for the whole thing.
After a while, though, the pranks begin to feel a bit forced, and the "robbery" towards the ending left me confused as to what was fake and what wasn't. It's definitely not Cillian's best film, but that's not to say it isn't a cute role for him or that he didn't play it well. All in all, it's a rather adorable change for him after all the dark roles. There are some awesome songs in the film too. My favorite personally is the Band Of Horses song during Neil's meltdown while he's playing baseball.
Worth a look.
score 6/10
PeachHamBeach 28 August 2010
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2303419/ |
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14-3-2021 00:06:06