I've written in the past about my love for stupid guy comedy. It has its limits - I'm not jumping on this bizarre college kid sex film bandwagon of Miss March, Sex Drive, Fired Up, College, and so forth - but adult guys acting like kids, talking about sex, vomiting on each other? What's wrong with that? If you're me (and I realize you're not), apparently nothing.
Now, I'm not saying I Love You, Man is Some Like it Hot or Duck Soup. Great, great film comedy seems to have slightly higher aims than just making you laugh. But what if the aim is simply that? Isn't that to be commended? Imagine, they want to produce a yuks-filled gag-o-rama, and succeed 95% of the way. Can you then blame them because they didn't try to make the next His Girl Friday? Of course not!
A pile of wackiness gets hung on the odd plot of a regular straight-laced guy, Pete (Paul Rudd), getting engaged and realizing that he doesn't have any close guy friends to be in his wedding party. Worse still, he has no best man, as Pete has always been a "girlfriend guy." So the film then takes us on his misadventures in finding a best friend, and much crude, homophobic, gross-out, dude humor commences.
It's a male bonding picture, which has been fairly rare in the comedy genre, until recent years. Pete finds a guy he likes palling around with, Sydney (Jason Segal), and they jam in Sydney's bachelor pad a bit, and they discuss sex and Lou Ferrigno, and have a general good guy time of it.
Okay, the plot's ridiculous, I'm not going to lie. It's funny, sure, an adult guy desperately trying to make friends, and getting set up on man dates, some of which naturally get misconstrued, and hijinks ensue, but come on, it's all rather convenient and silly. But that's the point, no? How can you fault the film for this? I can't.
The leads are hilarious. Paul Rudd, who has always been terrific in supporting roles in these wacky masculine laughers, has developed into the more traditional leading man the genre has been without. From Role Models to Knocked Up even back to his Clueless days, Rudd has been likeable and funny, but rarely was asked to carry the show. He does fine work here.
Jason Segal gets to play crazy this time around, following his slightly more subdued (if you can call it that) leading turn in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. He doesn't go Full Monty in this one, thankfully, but the character still goes to odd creative places, giving awkward wedding toasts and getting into arguments over his dog's poop (comedy!).
Beyond the leads, though, the film is stacked with great comics, turning up continually in all manner of roles. Andy Samberg, J.K. Simmons, Jane Curtin, Rashida Jones, Jaime Pressly, Jon Favreau, Thomas Lennon, Jerry Minor, Jay Chandrasekhar, and more keep appearing on screen, with an almost distracting frequency, as you start to wonder who will be next.
Oh, and Lou Ferrigno is terrific as himself. Funny, and having fun with his image, Ferrigno does some great comic bits.
I'm not going to go so far as to say that we've entered a new golden age of comedy - that might be pushing it - but in the last few years we've gotten a string of great to near great films that are genuinely hilarious and memorable. It's kind of amazing, as for a long stretch you might have one really funny comedy a year, coupled with a lot of garbage. But really, since, say, 2004, look at the pictures: The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Anchorman, Step Brothers, Walk Hard, Role Models, Superbad, Tropic Thunder, Talledega Nights, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Juno, Wedding Crashers, Foot Fist Way, Be Kind Rewind, Napoleon Dynamite. And now I Love You, Man. That's a lot of decent comedy in a relatively short span of time. Am I easily entertained? Perhaps. But you can't deny that there are better, funnier comedies being made today than any stretch in recent film.
DVDS. Engaged to the woman of his dreams yet uncomfortable with the prospect of not having a best man for his upcoming wedding, a successful real esta...More at DeepDiscount.com
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