Date Night

Performance Issues

You probably won't be able to find a bigger fan of Steve Carell and Tina Fey than I.  30 Rock and The Office (US) have become two of my favourite television shows of the past year and my love for Carell and Fey has only increased with time. So I was very excited to see that both of them were appearing in a film together, and had been looking forward to it for a while. And I can safely say that I was not disappointed.

The film follows the Fosters (Carell and Fey) who are stuck in a rut and decide to visit an up-scale restaurant to spice things up. Whilst there, they assume the identities of a non-showing couple who turn out to be in debt to a local gangster. This leads to a cat-and-mouse chase around New York City as the Fosters try and evade their corrupt cop captors with help from the ever-shirtless 'Markie' Mark Wahlberg.

Whilst I was expecting Michael Scott and Liz Lemon (Carell and Fey's respective sitcom characters) to be married in this film, I was glad to see both of them play new and believable roles. You end up truly wanting them to finish their date and have fun, a tribute to the acting as well as the writing, as Carell and Fey have an obvious chemistry. Although I felt that if the two were more involved in the writing or had chance to improvise, the comedy may have been a little edgier.

It was fun to see Wahlberg interact with the couple as well as cameos from Mila Kunis and James Franco, but I felt that they could have been given more screen time and opportunity to add to the comedy of the film.

Plus... Tina Fey pole-dancing in a saloon girl's outfit. Yes. A thousand times, yes.

Rating - 7/10