There are people who will love Date Night. They won’t bat an eye at any of the film’s unexplored characters. They won’t mind that it doesn’t come close to providing the entertainment which similar husband-and-wife caper-oriented films like True Lies (or even the shoddy Pitt-Jolie remake of Mr. and Mrs. Smith) brought to audiences. They will sit back and revel in Steve Carell’s all-too-familiar understated campiness. They will marvel at just how far Tina Fey’s novice acting chops have come since Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update. What a wonderfully fulfilling 88 minutes this film must be for them. I am not one of those people.
Carell and Fey play Phil and Claire Foster, whose uneventful marriage takes an unexpected turn when their weekly date night turns criminal, after Phil steals another couples’ reservation at the hottest new restaurant in Manhattan. A case of mistaken identity leads two dirty cops (loyal to the mafia) to assume the Fosters are the Tripplehorns, who have some incriminating photos on a very important flash drive. Yes, the Fosters alert the mob goons as to their dishonest table-snatching scheme. No, these sub-intellectual detectives do not believe the boring Jersey husband and wife, who evade the duo and the New York City police impossibly and consistently throughout the movie.
You can expect several smile-inducing, albeit not knee-slapping moments from Fey and Carell. Fey’s SNL slapstick experience and lack of vanity onscreen is always refreshing (watch the thick trails of saliva fall out of her mouth as she removes her retainer before some possible intimacy with Carell). But the lack of chemistry and tension between Fey and Carell weighs Date Night down. The couple’s argument over who takes more responsibility in the marriage feels out of place and manipulative; the scenes meant to be pivotal and heartfelt feel canned and sappy.
The film’s best laughs come from stand-out cameo’s played by everyone from Ray Liotta to Mila Kunis. A bare-chested Mark Wahlberg steals scenes as a playboy security professional, while Kunis and James Franco (who have the flash drive the Fosters want) are fantastic as a gushy couple hiding from Liotta’s mob boss.
Date Night isn’t rocket science, and director Shawn Levy (of Cheaper by the Dozen and Night at the Museum franchise fame) knows this. Expect to be spoon-fed tender plot points that will be shoved back in your mouth at the end of the film. Count on the Fosters living through the inexplicable car chases and perilous shootouts. The real question at the end of any onscreen duo action movie is whether the pair is still willing to go on together. Has this experience put them through the wringer enough to tear them apart, or bring them closer together? I said it before. Audiences just might care about the fate of the Fosters. I, however, do not.
-Hillary Smotherman
