Shawn Levy, 20th Century Fox (21/04/10)

Fresh from the news of their friend’s imminent separation, Date Night’s every-couple Phil and Claire Foster decide to pull out all the stops for a special night out in Manhattan to rekindle their own fading flame, not knowing they’re in for an altogether different sort of memorable.

Steve Carell and Tina Fey, share a comfortable, engaging chemistry here in the lead roles that belie the fact that this is the first time they’ve shared the screen, and provide the film with its sturdy comedic backbone whilst keeping the otherwise middling material from missing its mark. The result is enjoyable mainstream entertainment that does exactly what it says on the tin in offering a er, great date film.

Yet in spite of its otherwise shamelessly popcorn action/comedy sensibilities, Date Night possesses a shred of intelligence underneath its high-concept (early) summer film hijinks. For all the True Lies and Mr. & Mrs. Smith’s out there, that use bored marriages and everyday situations as a springboard for explosions and car chases, the action in director Shawn Levy’s (Night At The Museum) film offer the window through which marriage and good partnerships are explored. And even though that exploration is mostly superficial and produces no groundbreaking insight, it’s nice to see a major studio film taking the time to flesh out a believable, lived-in relationship – a portrait that’s filled in by the natural instincts and top-flight improv skills of its leads as well as much of its supporting cast.

Speaking of the larger cast, the film survives on the performance of its leads, but the supporting players and cameo appearances provide a surprisingly nice garnish as well. Cameos are a dangerous business, yielding good results (Zombieland’s spectacular appearance from the king of comedy… who will remain unnamed here) – far less often yield disappointing returns – see Ricky Gervais in The Invention of Lying, in which Ms. Fey made one of the few worthwhile appearances among the seemingly endless parade of familiar faces – because so often they seem designed to distract from the failings of weak material.

In Date Night’s case, the cameos work, thanks to a conscious effort on the filmmaker’s part to elevate fleeting appearances to crucial (if still brief) roles, and each of the performers – including James Franco, Mila Kunis, Ray Liotta, Kristen Wiig, Mark Ruffalo, and Taraji P. Henson – manage to create distinct, memorable characters out of their few pages or less of dialogue.

The plot of Date Night follows the Fosters as they tumble from shootout to wild bumper-to-bumper car chase, to a shady mob-run gentleman’s club (with a couple of short breaks along the way to catch breath and check out Mark Wahlberg’s pecs), though it’s a little of a shock to find that there’s never any real sense of danger in the film. It couldn’t have hurt to remove a bit of the polish that a director like Levy slaps across each frame, but again, it’s to the credit of Fey and Carell that we remain interested despite the almost complete lack of tension.

We know the Fosters will survive and so will their marriage, but that’s not really the point in a film like this. With Fey and Carell at the wheel, it’s the journey to our rather obvious destination that turns out, much like the Fosters night, to be far more fun than you’d expect.

review: Peter Berg

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