Date Night (2010)

Directed by Shawn Levy

All the players involved, Tina Fey, Steve Carell, and Mark Wahlberg, I had to see this, and I also had to love it. So I did both. From the time I saw the trailer I said to myself, that looks like a lot of fun. Phil and Claire Foster are an average couple from New Jersey just living the dream. Wake up early, get the kids off to school, work all day, pick the kids up, clean, dinner, and go to bed just to do it all over again. When friends of theirs announce they are spliting, the Fosters begin to worry about their relationship, so they take a date night to the city, and when they do, they encounter a new firestorm of events that pushes them to new levels.

It’s almost like a comedy gone action movie, but what makes it so convincing is that Carell and Fey are so good at convincing the audience that they don’t belong in an action movie that it makes it that much funnier. The movie takes place in the course of one night and hangs on to a hair thin plot, but the point of the movie is to set up all the great comedic performances and comedic scenes. The most notable appearances, apart from the spectacular leads in Fey and Carell, come from James Franco and J.B. Smoove. Neither are in it for longer than five minutes but their impact is seen. Both portray great characters.

I don’t want to have to give away too much from the movie, but it was hilarious and it was great. From a technical movie standpoint maybe not the best thing ever, but as a comedy, top notch. A great vehicle for the comedy genius of Fey and Carell. And what makes it so great is the dramatic parts too. The Fosters are a couple that truly love each other and sometimes in their hectic lives it might take a night like this to remind them just how much they do love each other. I would watch it again in a second.

***1/2 – Great