Sunday 12 October 2008

REVIEW: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People


It seemed like some force of the cosmos was trying to stop me seeing this film. From potentially exploding light-bulbs to lost unlimited cards, it felt like a lost cause. But stubbornness supercedes the cosmos and here we are, film freshly seen. Do good things come to those who wait then, or do, erm, bad things come to those who wait. A little of both really. Its another one of those films that doesn't really know what it wants to be, starting off a mildly satirical farce and ending in, as these films always do, with the perpetual asshole seeing the error of his ways. Neither section is better then the other, both hitting a bland middle-ground. It has the occassional moment, with Danny Huston's sleazebag-for-hire being suitably sleazy and Pegg making an affable leading man, something in my eyes he hasn't done even in infinately better films like Shaun of the dead. He does really seem to have improved as an actor, and gone is the aimless mugging (well mostly anyway) but if he wants to do this for real he needs to start making some better film choices. The rest of the cast dip in and out, treated badly by the script which threatens to do something interesting with them before discarding them completely. Jeff Bridges is the most under-served, doing well in what he has but more of him would have been definately welcome. Dunst is in yet another thankless role but on the plus side she gets to do more here then as MJ. Gillian Anderson and Megan Fox are both pleasant suprises. Fox was terrible in the hideous Transformers movie so it was a pleasant suprise to see her show some degree of talent here. Anderson has been quietly good for last 5 years or so, showing up and being excellent in things as diverse as the Last King of Scotland and A Cock and Bull story. But all are let down by pedestrian direction and a so-so script. Meh.


5/10

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