The Movie Blog

I Love You Man Review

By John - March 18, 2009 - 14:25 America/Montreal

Thanks for checking out our I Love You Man review. If you’d like to watch the video version of our I Love You Man review you can see it at the bottom of the written review.

I’ve been a huge Paul Rudd fan for years now. We’ve all recognized him forever from a thousand different things. Josh on Clueless or Phoebe’s boyfriend Mike on Friends. But the moment I finally recognized his comedic genius was in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy where he played news reporter Brian Fantana. Oh yes my friends… Sex Panther, 60% of the time it works, every time.

Jason Segel is another story. When I saw him in Knocked Up, I recognized him from a few episodes of CSI, but neither his role in that, nor in Knocked Up impressed me at all. To be honest I sorta thought he was dead weight in an otherwise pretty satisfying comedy. I was shocked when I found out he was getting a leading role in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. But, as we all know, he knocked that one completely out of the park.

So put these two together in a movie called “I Love You, Man”, and I’m instantly interested. The trailers for the movie haven’t been very good, so I haven’t known what to expect. Did it turn out ok? Yes… yes it did.

THE GENERAL IDEA

The synopsis for I Love You Man looks something like this: “In I Love You, Man, a comedy from John Hamburg (Along Came Polly, co-writer of Meet The Parents, Meet The Fockers, Zoolander), Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd, Knocked Up The 40 Year Old Virgin) is a successful real estate agent who, upon getting engaged to the woman of his dreams, Zooey, (The Offices Rashida Jones), discovers, to his dismay and chagrin, that he has no male friend close enough to serve as his Best Man. Peter immediately sets out to rectify the situation, embarking on a series of bizarre and awkward man-dates, before meeting Sydney Fife (Jason Segel, Forgetting Sarah Marshall), a charming, opinionated man with whom he instantly bonds. But the closer the two men get, the more Peters relationship with Zooey suffers, ultimately forcing him to choose between his fiancée and his new found bro, in a story that comically explores what it truly means to be a friend.”

THE GOOD

I don’t often talk about the supporting cast in comedies, but this one was fantastic. Andy Samberg plays Rudd’s gay younger brother and his comedic timing is fantastic. The always awesome J.K. Simmons as Rudd’s dad, Jaime Pressly, Iron Man director Jon Favreau, Rashida Jones (from The Office), Sarah Burns (this is the first thing I’ve seen her in, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing her again), Lou Ferrigno (yes, The Hulk)… the list really does go on and on. A lot of comedies fail at providing strong supporting casts… but his one was every bit as funny as the leads in the film… and that’s saying something.

Paul Rudd is a comedic leading man and I’m so happy he’s finally getting some attention as such. Ever since 40 Year Old Virgin you could tell he had what it takes to carry a film, but he seemed stuck in supporting roles (nothing wrong with supporting roles… he’s amazing at them). Rudd takes this opportunity and really runs with it. He looked very comfortable in the first chair and allowed his natural charm to really shine, which in my opinion is the main strength of I Love You Man.

I say this all the time… but the main responsibility of a comedy is to make the audience laugh, and I Love You Man clearly takes that responsibility very seriously, because there are a hell of a lot of laughs in this movie with a terrific mixture of physical and smart comedy all mixed into one big ball of hilarity. No, it’s not the funniest film I’ve seen all year, but it’s damn entertaining and hit the majority of it’s comedic notes.

I appreciated the attempt to look at the nature of male relationships and how they fit with the men/women relationships us guys have in our lives. I don’t think it handled the issue nearly as well as say… Clerks 2 does… but I still think it’s a topic almost NO movies really look at or try to tackle, and I appreciated the fact that this film at least took a stab at it.

THE BAD

As great as Paul Rudd is in this film, there was a decision made that began to irritate me more and more as the movie progressed. As you know from the trailers, Rudd’s character has never really had many male friends, and he’s a bit socially awkward with them. The problem is that (and I won’t give any spoilers away here… but you’ll see what I mean when you watch the movie) they establish that Rudd is socially awkward around male friends… then they repeat it to us… and then they repeat it again… then again… then again… then again… by the 45 minute mark I wanted to gouge my eyes out every time they went back to that well. It was funny the first 3 times they did it… then it hurt the following 20 times. Easily the biggest drawback of the movie for me.

Although I firmly stand by the idea that laughs are the most important element of a comedy, it’s nice when the story of the film flows well too. This is the element that separates I Love You Man from truly upper echelon comedies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall or 40 Year Old Virgin. The story of the film just didn’t “flow” for me. Instead of feeling like the driving narrative, the story just felt like a lose container for the jokes and gags to be stuffed into. There’s nothing wrong with that if the laughs works… but you need it to turn a good comedy into a special comedy. I Love You Man was lacking in this area.

Like Rudd’s socially awkward gags, I Love You Man went back to the Lou Ferrigno jokes WAAAAYYYY too often. Yes, it was funny the first time… yes it was funny the second time… but the dozen times after that made me want to yawn. It was just far too much.

OVERALL

There are a few significant flaws with I Love You Man. A modestly weak story. Returning to running gags throughout the film far too many times and perhaps a bit of a lame ending. But all that being said, this is a funny funny movie with some solid performances by both the lead and supporting cast members that delivers a very entertaining night at the movies (which at the end of the day is the most important thing). Yeah, it could have been better… but for my admission it’s very well worth it. Solid comedy. Overall I give I Love You Man a 7 out of 10.

You can see the video version of our I Love You Man Reveiw here: