Shawn's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People Review

2008 Movie #125 - How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

I fear a little for Simon Pegg. The double whammy of awesomeness that was Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz really helped establish him and made people realize just how fucking funny he is. This of course lead to him getting starring roles in other movis such as Run Fatboy Run and now this one. While he is still good in them (in fact in this one he is absolutely the best part), the poor reception and box office numbers are going to lead studios to think he can’t carry a movie and therefore his work will dwindle. The problem isn’t that he can’t carry a movie, he just has yet to be handed a great movie to carry.

Now I did enjoy Run Fatboy Run quite a bit more than I expected. This was almost entirely because of Pegg however. I didn’t enjoy this one as much, but still believe Pegg was absolutely the best part of it. Had you put pretty much anybody else in the role, the movie would have very few redeeming qualities. Thankfully Pegg manages to take a mediocre script and improve it just that little bit to make the movie watchable.

One thing I didn’t see coming was the R rating. I thought this was a Pg-13 so it was very surprising when the fucks just started dropping. I don’t think it really added much to the movie but at the same time it’s cool to see movies slowly becoming braver when it comes to this rating. It did allow for a few jokes that weren’t bad which wouldn’t have been allowed in a lower rated movie.

I’ve already mentioned Pegg, but the rest of the cast should be talked about too. Jeff Bridges is good, as the man usually is. He’s not in the movie much but he manages to steal every scene he’s in. It’s also cool to see Gillian Anderson in a non X-Files related role, even if she isn’t around all that much in the movie.

Megan Fox’s role is well, a little pointless. Her character is established as being a very central point to the plot of the movie but she never seems to be doing anything. Fox doesn’t bring much to a character that is already pretty thinly written. She also has this bizarre switch where at first it looks like they’re using her to parody air headed actresses (which has been done already anyway) but then suddenly she’s just an egomaniac manipulative slut bitch. The transition just happens out of nowhere and her entire character felt like the movie just didn’t know what the fuck to do with her. So they concluded they should just put Fox in her underwear, which is fine. To say Fox is apparently the next big thing, she has yet to really do anything that impresses me.
As for Kirsten Dunst, well I’ve never really been a fan of hers at all and this movie does nothing to change that. That about sums it up.

This movie could have been so much better but instead just falls into the trap of being another generic run of the mill romantic comedy. Pegg takes it a few notches higher than it probably deserves, but the movie itself is forgettable. The man deserves much better than this.

** ½ / 5