Offensively funny!
Peter is getting married to a beautiful girl named Zooey. They’ve only date eight months, but they’re pretty sure it’s the right time. Everything seems right, and marriage plans have begun. There is a slight problem, though. It seems as if Peter doesn’t really have any best friends. Without friends he doesn’t have groomsmen; without them he would be standing awkwardly alone. So what does Peter do? He goes to find friends! After several try-outs he finally meets a man named Sydney who turns out to be everything he’s wanted in a best friend. As Peter and Sydney get to know each other more and more, Peter’s relationship with Zooey begins to fade a bit. So, Peter runs into a dilemma, how can he balance out girl and friend and still be happily married?
I Love You, Man is a light-hearted comedy when it’s truly broken down into bare bones. Sure it’s highly offensive (see Masturbation Station for details), but it truly is innocent at the core. Paul Rudd plays a very lovable lead character that is quite frankly more accurate to every nerd who grew up cute than people know about. It’s certainly not far-fetched to think that a character that has moved around a lot, who never established a friend group would end up in this type of situation. The set-up in the story is very plausible to say the least. I don’t think anyone else would have fit more perfect than Paul Rudd in that role. He has that look of innocence about him and plays a good ‘discovery’ type character. So with that said, let’s move on to the execution of the story.
It might be light-hearted overall, but the movie was a tad bit long winded in some areas. The uncovering of Sydney’s flaws (played by the very funny Jason Segel) was a bit of a stretch. His flaws (which I won’t get into because you should watch the film yourself) seemed to cast a ‘crazy’ light on his character. I’m not sure that those flaws should be resolved like they were at the end. It just seems a bit too unbelievable and too wild to be gently rectified at the end. In other words, if you found out about Sydney’s issues you probably wouldn’t invite him ever to your wedding. I do understand that his character can’t be perfect, but pick different ways to bring his character down. I think it was taken just a bit too far.
Back to the overall story, I like what was done here. Despite the overkill with Sydney, his introduction with Peter couldn’t have been done more smoothly. Clearly the premise of the entire movie was funny to begin with, but with the combination of characters and how well the two main leads worked together made this movie enjoyable. Now, looking at the story from a distance, you do have a very solid story about a man just trying to be liked and gain friendship. That portion of the movie is very solid. What makes it even better are the comedic moments they placed onto that story. Moments like Peter vomiting all over Jon Favreau’s a-hole character or when Segel’s character picks a fight with Lou Ferrigno (which is hilarious) and loses badly. There are dozens of these moments that come and go. What makes these moments brilliant is that they’re not forced into the story awkwardly; wherever the story is the moment fits that point. For example, at the beginning when Peter is trying out friends he gets set-up with a guy named Doug for dinner (the guy is played by Thomas Lennon). After dinner, Peter soon discovers that Doug is gay after Doug french kisses him. Later on in the movie Doug reappears while Peter is being fitted for his tuxedo and proceeds to call Peter a whore (Peter is accompanied by Sydney). It’s good comedy that serves a purpose for the moment. I must give kudos for writers John Hamburg (also the director) and Larry Levin.
In the end, the movie has more good than bad and while the character flaws of Sydney are certainly creepy, all is forgiven because it’s simply entertaining. Ask anyone in the country who is a writer about what the toughest genre is to write for and they’ll all agree that it’s comedy. This movie is funny, it’s entertaining and for the most part it’s well written.
Score another one for Rudd and Segel.
Beautifully funny!
The southern Californian general look is pretty damn gross; if you’ve ever been to Los Angeles you know what I mean. Thankfully, there were beautiful locations put into this film (such as Venice Beach) that made the HD worthwhile. When you get to places like Venice Beach or Santa Monica, you can fully respect how pretty California could potentially be. I really appreciated how the places were selected and how well they turned out on Blu-ray. It’s completely worth the jump to have this movie in HD. As for the music, all the audio was defined by one thing and one thing only….. Rush. They sounded beautiful in 5.1.
As for features, here’s what you’re looking at:
– Deleted Scenes (HD)
– Extended Scenes (HD)
– Gag Reel (HD)
– The Making of I Love You, Man (HD)
– Commentary by John Hamburg, Paul Rudd and Jason Segel (funny stuff! If you’re not a fan of commentary, make it so!)
– Red Band Trailer (HD)