Some things sound too good to be true. Take, for instance, the pairing of Steve Carell and Tina Fey in “Date Night.” They both have honed their skills on well-regarded TV shows. Carell has taken his shtick to the big screen with success. They look like they could be a married couple. How could this fail?
As the release date for the movie got closer, I started to wonder if this fell in the category of good ideas destined to fail. On TV, both play characters who get in the way of their own attempts to find “the one.” Michael Scott and Liz Lemon have taken different paths to the single life, but both seem destined to stay there. Add in the fact that Carell’s most famous movie roles have had him playing an idiot or a virgin. All of a sudden, making them the happy suburban couple didn’t sound too perfect.
But it worked. Thanks to an interesting plot, some outstanding casting for the supporting cast and solid performances by the stars, “Date Night” turned out to be pretty fun.
The plot may sound simple, but they added enough touches that most married couples can appreciate that it didn’t fall into parody category. Well, not all the time. An overworked couple has a standing date night that they stay faithful to no matter how tired they are. That means, however, that they end up at the same restaurant eating the same food all the time. So the one time they decide to do something special, everything goes haywire.
This is where the supporting cast comes into play, particularly the bad guys. They really hit a home run with Rapper Common and Jimmi Simpson, who plays one of the McPoyle brothers on “It’s Always Sunny,” in those roles. The other touches of Mark Wahlberg, James Franco and Mila Kunis made sure the action and fun kept on coming without having to put the entire burden on Carell and Fey.
With enough support from the rest, the two stars came through, delivering the inside jokes their characters shared with ease and making the action scenes believable enough. But Tina Fey doesn’t look like the the kind to throw on four-inch heels much less run away from bad guys through the woods in them. Little things like that made me shake my head, but didn’t detract from the overall film.