Review: Date Night

Grade: A

Phil and Claire Foster are a typical married couple with two kids living in New Jersey, but when their friends decide to get a divorce because they’ve fallen into a rut, the same rut the Fosters feel they are in, Phil and Claire decide to try to change things up a bit. Their idea is simple, go to New York for a romantic evening at an upscale restaurant. But when they get there the restaurant has no table for them, so when they hear that a couple, the Tripplehorns, hasn’t shown up for their reservation, the Fosters decide to pretend they are the Tripplehorns. Problem is, the real Tripplehorns have a mob boss looking for them and his goons are now convinced that the Fosters are the people they are looking for. As the Fosters try to stay alive and figure a way out of their predicament, they stumble upon a bigger conspiracy.

As soon as I heard about the casting of this actiony comedy I knew this movie was going to be good. The director, Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum, The Pink Panther) had decided to cast Steve Carrell (40 Year Old Virgin, TVs The Office) and Tina Fey (Baby Mama, TVs 30 Rock) as the Fosters, this is a comedy match made in heaven. Carrell brought his usual wit and humor to the movie and Fey was as funny as she always is at times bringing her Liz Lemon charm to the role. Carrell and Fey worked perfectly together in this movie and were so funny I don’t think I stopped laughing the entire time. One great running joke throughout the movie would involve the Fosters trying to explain to people the predicament that they are in and whenever they get to the part about taking someone else's reservation, the person they are talking to stops them and acts like that is the worst thing a person could do. The movie is absolutely hilarious from start to finish and has plenty of action and some suspense mixed in with it too. This movie completely met my expectations and is now probably the best comedy of the year in my opinion. Just a great and fun movie to watch. I really want to go back and watch it again because I think I missed a bit of this movie because I was laughing so hard.

The rest of the cast was great too. James Franco (Pineapple Express, Milk) and Mila Kunis (Book of Eli, Extract) show up as the real Tripplehorns in a hilarious scene. Also, Mark Wahlberg (The Lovely Bones, The Departed) plays Holbrooke, an ex-client of Claire’s, who is in private security and used to do black ops type stuff and never seems to want to wear a shirt. The scenes with Wahlberg are great, his character’s interactions with Carrell and Fey’s characters are absolutely hilarious. The rest of the cast includes Taraji P. Henson, William Fichtner, Bill Burr, Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Wiig, Jimmi Simpson and Common.

This movie was just fantastic and one of the funnier movies I’ve seen in a while. Like I said, I was laughing from start to finish. The comedic combination of Steve Carrell and Tina Fey was absolutely perfect and really makes this movie worth watching. If you are looking for a good funny movie to see, go see Date Night, trust me, you won’t be disappointed.

Great quote: “Aw man, now I have to pick it up off the ground to eat it.”