The Reel Critic - 04/22/10

In “Date Night,” Steve Carell and Tina Fey play, in their characters’ own words, a “boring couple from New Jersey” that is thrown into a manic night in New York City involving lying cops, a manipulative babysitter and kinky politician-turned-criminals.

Fey and Carell reached the heights of their fame playing, respectively, the neurotic and self-deprecating Liz Lemon on TV’s “30 Rock,” and the hopelessly incompetent and deluded Michael Scott on “The Office.”

They’ve perfected a style of comedy that is both absurdist and disturbingly realistic (at least for those of us whom Liz Lemon’s eating habits and love life strike a little too close to home. Blargh).

So to see them play straight man to a cast of good, but far less funny, actors — Mark Wahlberg, William Fichtner, Common (yeah, Common) — is entertaining enough, but never as good as when they’re allowed to take their rightful places as the funniest people in the room.

The script strains to make Claire and Phil Foster (Fey and Carell) as dull as possible — they have uninteresting jobs, two kids and participate in a book club with other boring couples. Well, actually, not that boring: Mark Ruffalo and Kristen Wiig — who really needs her own movie — play one couple. They each inform Claire and Phil that they’re splitting up; they are tired of the routine. Cue the predictable plotline where the Fosters’ grey suburban marriage is salvaged by adventure in the big city.

Let’s not forget, though, that you know you’re not going to see the latest little indie comedy that could — “Date Night” is directed by Shawn Levy, the auteur behind the “Night at the Museum” franchise, and it’s a family-friendly PG-13 affair. If Judd Apatow had directed this, it would have been much raunchier, more talkative and probably hilarious; if the Coen brothers had directed it, it would be much more violent and probably hilarious.

But there’s something to be said for a comedy that can, for all its faults, pretty consistently amuse across age, class and gender without offending, which “Date Night” does. Then again, there is also something to be said for making sure your movie is rated PG-13 so it can make more bank.

The Fosters get embroiled in a blackmail conspiracy when they decide to go out on the town for a fancy dinner to reignite the spark in their relationship. Unable to get reservations, they take another couple’s. It turns out that the real couple, the Tripplehorns, have a flash drive that two corrupt cops want.

From here we plunge into the classic case of mistaken identity plotline, though little mystery appears: we are told most things up front, left to think about the real worry — whether the Fosters will make it back to their kids by morning.

On their way, they meet a cast of decidedly unsuburban characters, including Wahlberg as Holbrooke Grant, an ex-Special Ops man who lends the Fosters a hand. There is a running gag about the fact that Holbrooke never seems to be wearing a shirt, which leaves one to question whether Wahlberg’s fame is due more to the expressiveness of his face or of his abs.

James Franco and Mila Kunis, as the real Tripplehorns, fill out a constellation of stars that also includes Ray Liotta and “Gossip Girl’s” Leighton Meester. “Date Night” is sort of a “Who’s Who” of hey-I-know-that-guy actors. Franco and Kunis are the most amusing, however, playing a young, tattooed couple named Taste and Whippit that, for all their bizarre interests and habits, turn out to have the same relationship problems as the Fosters. Franco continues his purposely weird career trajectory of studied self-parody (other credits include “30 Rock”), and Mila Kunis brings the charm and comic timing she gained on “That 70’ Show” (let’s not talk about “Family Guy”).

Carell and Fey may mock the mundane and ordinary on television, but in “Date Night,” they end up celebrating it. And despite the fact that they’re much more than just America’s sweethearts, they’re better suited to represent the American everycouple than, say, Katherine Heigl and whoever her latest male equivalent might be. “Date Night” is sweet — an increasingly rare quality in movies today — and while that may make it less funny, it also makes it defiantly likeable.