What a Night!

My new post is a review for the film and DVD Date NIght...

Claire and Phil Foster are a normal married couple with a happy family and busy working lives. They muddle through their lives but make a point of spending Friday nights as date night. They usually end up spending the night talking about the kids and work and never really have any excitement. When they both hear the news that their best friends are splitting up due to the fact their lives have become boring and predictable they both decide to make changes to their own relationship.

Date night sees Phil taking Claire to the city for a meal and a top restaurant but when they are unable to get a table they steel someone else’s reservation. Unfortunately this is not a good choice as they get mistaken for other people and are soon being hunted down by dodgy cops with guns looking for a flash drive.

Claire and Phil have to try and clear their names but with a lack of police on their side and no idea what the guys want will they be able to do this?

I was really looking forward to watching this film as the trailers made it look good and I do find that Steve Carell is usually quite funny in his roles. Unfortunately I was left slightly disappointed with this film. The story was good and it was quite original on some level but when watching I kept think about the film Did You hear about the Morgan’s as this had a similar story. I thought the way the actors handled themselves was quite good too and did help the story along.

Steve Carell took the role of Phil and he did a good job. He was a down to Earth Dad and husband who spent all his time working and when at home he spent his time with the children. He seemed to be in the shadow of his wife and was never trusted to help do job around the house. There were times when I felt he needed to be stronger and stand up for himself more but this was not the case and I did feel he was hiding behind his wife for the majority of the story. There was a good chemistry between him and on screen wife Claire. Claire was played by Tina Fey and I felt she did a slight better job in her role than Steve Carell. She seemed harder and more able to accept what was going on. I could sympathise with her with the way she felt at home and completely agreed with how she was so exhausted after looking after the children all day. I felt she delivered all of her lines with ease and was easy to get to know and warm to.

We did have some good support roles including actors, Mark Wahlberg, Jimmi Simpson, Common and William Fichtner. They all played quite different roles and bought some depth to the story.

The setting for the film was in the present day in Manhattan and I felt this was a good setting. We got to see a good few places around the city and central park and I loved them all. The costumes were also very fitting for the film, although no real effort was needed for them as they were just normal modern clothes. I did like the way me never stayed in one place and moved around as this gave the film depth and the travelling to the places at times was quite fun. There are some special effects in the film and I thought they were all made to a very high standard and fitted effortlessly into the film. The soundtrack was also good and quite mixed, we had some very modern and up tempo songs used throughout the film and in between this we did have some older more well known ones. I felt it was all very suitable for the places and scenes in which it was used.

The film is a comedy but for me it was lacking overall in big laughs. We did have some quite funny one liners and visual gags but they were used over and over again throughout the film and they did become boring. I felt that Steve Carell did struggle with come of the spoken jokes he was given and he did come across as quite wooden at times. I know he was giving the effect of being scared and out of his depth but for me it just did not work very well. Some of the support actors did bring the better laughs to this film. There really was a lot of potential to the laughs which we could have had in this film but sadly it was not reached.

The DVD does have the bonus features of a gag real but it is not worth buying the DVD just for this reason as there are a lot of gags shown on the closing credits and personally I did not find them very funny. There is also a digital copy of the film included on my DVD which allows you to download the film with ease and watch it on you mobile devises. I have not personally used this but my best friend has and found it straight forward to do. The DVD which we have cost me just under £5 and I felt this was a good price. I would not be willing to pay more to watch this film. The rate is a 15 and I do agree with this due to the fact there is moderate sex references and some strong language. The run time is fortunately only 97 minutes and I did find this was long enough.

I am going to recommend this film but only if you are able to get the DVD for a good bargain price or even catch it on TV for free. I am only able to give it 3 stars despite the fact it is watch able and we do have some laughs but for me it was overall lacking in big gags and I felt the full potential of the story was not reached or realised.