Wow, I have not been looking forward to this one, more so
than possibly any other film this year aside from God’s Not Dead 2. The reason
why is down to two simple words: Isla Fisher. To the rest of the world, Isla is
the woman married to Sacha Baron Cohen and one of the few Australian actresses
that has all but completely assimilated into the Hollywood food chain. To us
here in Australia, she’s the amazingly annoying redhead who flooded our screens
with ads for ING. No joke, she had a “turn your phones off” bit that was a)
irritating beyond all human reason and b) shown in front of about 90-95% of the
films I saw last year. That’s close to 200 times that I had to hear her screech
about how her phone ringing ruined her “perfect” take. Needless to say, I now
have an irreparable hatred for Isla Fisher and, as a result, I am really not
looking forward to seeing her on-screen again in any capacity.
The plot: Jeff (Zach Galifianakis) and Karen (Isla Fisher)
are an ordinary couple in a suburban cul-de-sac, finally getting some time to
themselves now that their sons are at camp. However, their quiet life is about
to get shaken up with the arrival of new neighbors Tim and Natalie Jones (Jon
Hamm and Gal Gadot). They appear to be ordinary, if somewhat well accomplished,
suburbanites, but it seems that they aren’t all that they appear and, whether
they like it or not, Jeff and Karen are along for the ride.
The cast here, despite my own prejudices going into the
thing, are actually pretty solid overall. Galifianakis has the affable working
schlub down pat and works within that frame. Fisher ends up being the most
proactive of the coupling, and as obnoxious that she is, I have to give credit
that she is as game for the nonsense on screen as she is. Hamm, rather than
embodying his name, brings a lot of grounding to the film as the willing but
weary agent. Honestly, more so than Fisher, it’s Hamm who makes the best
coupling alongside Galifianakis. Gadot, while doing a good job at personifying
how modern-day espionage is seen (read: torture is always justified), brings a
bit of doubt into how well she’ll work out in the upcoming Wonder Woman solo
film. Might seem like a tangent, but quite frankly, I don’t want to see another
iteration of the character who is willing to torture her captors and with how
well she handles it here, I can’t help but think of it as a possibility.
There’s also the big bad who, in recurring fashion, is played by a surprise
cameo. I won’t spoil it here, but the main villain does a lot to help with the
deconstructionist themes of the narrative.
There is a very specific feeling that comes with watching
some of the worse comedies out there, especially in cinemas. It’s that feeling
when jokes are being told, and you can clearly tell that no-one (least of all
yourself) is laughing. Short of literal death, it is the single worst feeling a
human being can succumb to and, unfortunately, it’s a common occurrence
throughout the first third of the film. Now, judging by my own sensibilities
when it comes to comedy (going by my previous reviews, at least), most of these
sorts of films require a bit of time for me to properly get into. However, it’s
not every production that makes that climb this painful to sit through.
But once it does pick up, it actually makes for some really
nice moments. Particularly when it comes to the juxtaposition that fuels the entire
film, that being domestic drama vs. spy drama, something that the film makes
some nice points about. For starters, there’s the surface comparisons about
how, despite how exciting the job description may be, it can still be taxing on
the people involved. In the bar scene with Jeff and Tim, the writing gets
surprisingly poignant in between all the thinly-veiled interrogating. That
combined with an admittedly awkward scene of Karen and Natalia in a changing
room, which somehow isn’t nearly as sexy as it sounds, makes some nice
sentiments about relationships. And then there’s the below-the-surface
commentary on how Hollywood portrays espionage as opposed to the real world.
While our heroes(?) are trigger-happy and quite willing to torture to get
information (no, that still isn’t any easier to sit through), the bad guys turn
out to be a lot more blue-collar than a film like this would anticipate.
So, with all this talk about contrasting the doldrums of
suburban life with the more high-octane thrills of an action narrative, I can’t
be the only one being heavily reminded of that other film Galifianakis was in not that long ago. In fact, the
basic mechanics of the plot make it nearly impossible for me not to bring up
the similarities. I mean, as much as I appreciate this film’s subtler writing
moments, it’s not quite enough to shake the feeling that it’s been too soon
since I last saw this film. One of my bigger philosophies when it comes to
film-going, and one of the main reason for the existence of my yearly movie
lists, is that the mindset behind going to a film is basically a matter of
comparison. When you only have so many times a year that you can go out and see
a movie (both for monetary and scheduling reasons), it’s important to have at
least a general idea of what you’re about to watch so that as little as
possible is wasted. So, what happens when two films are released in close
proximity to each other that have certain distinct connections to each other?
Well, quite honestly, stick to the earlier one; that one may have been another
slow climb to funny, but it didn’t hurt quite as much on the way there.
All in all, while the writing is surprisingly good in places
and the actors are well-cast and make the most of their material, there’s no
escaping the fact that this supposed ‘comedy’ is largely removed from anything
humourous for way too much of the film. Smart subtext isn’t enough to save a
film that’s trying way too hard to be funny and mostly failing. No, this film
didn’t make me hate Isla Fisher any more than I already do (then again, that in
and of itself would be a herculean task), but I’m not exactly at the point of
defending her here either.
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