The Magic Is Gone

Date Night is good — but not great.

By WEIKE WANG

The marriage of Tina Fey and Steve Carell was bound to happen. They are Liz Lemon and Michael Scott. They are grounded, modest-looking people who just happen to tickle audiences silly. Starring the two of them as Phil and Claire Foster, Date Night is a successful movie. It delivers as many laughs as it advertises, and it is exactly what we have come to expect from both Fey and Carell: a funnier version of the average in all of us.

The Fosters are an affectionate nuclear family living in suburbia, New Jersey. Phil and Claire have two children, both bouncy balls of inexhaustible energy, and they love one another; we know they do from the quick pecks on the cheek, the sporadic picking off of lint. Phil and Claire are comfortable, content, but not completely happy because they’ve lost much of their former zest (and their libidos) to domestic routine. On weekly date nights, they reprimand snogging couples with feigned disgust. “This is a family place.” “How inappropriate…tasteless really.” But in truth, they want their zest back.

Date Night takes place over the twelve hours of a single date. On this particular night, Phil takes Claire into the city to dine at the five-star seafood restaurant Claw. They don’t make a reservation because they feel that getting there at 6:30pm on a Friday night is “all right.” Much to their surprise, Claw is full till the end of next month. So while squirming in the plush seats of the restaurant’s bar, feeling out of place in this crowd of nonchalant youngsters, a disgruntled Phil does something bold — he steals the unclaimed  reservation of the Tripplehorns. “Tonight is going to be different,” he says.

The Tripplehorns turn out to be liars and thieves. They are actually the Feltons (James Franco and Mila Kunis) who have recently filched a flash drive of sensitive material from mobster boss, Joe Milletto (Ray Liotto). Two mob-employed cops are now in hot pursuit of the Tripplehorns, aka the Feltons, aka the Fosters. After a series of misunderstandings and mishaps, the Fosters find themselves dodging bullets, blazing through traffic lights and pole dancing to robotic sex. In the midst of the hubbub, brief calms come in the form of a shirtless security guru, Holbrooke (Mark Walberg). Holbrooke lives in a fancy pad with instruments that seem like they ought to belong to the CIA and an exotic lady friend; he helps the Fosters now and then, scouts information for them, and lends them a sports car, a pistol, and a full view of his pecs. Perhaps the most useless character in the film, Holbrooke really is a caricature between Bond and Bourne and he really never puts on a shirt.

The plot, I like: engaging but not so complicated that we can’t differentiate good guys from bad guys and not so pedantic that we forget the basic function of the film, which is entertainment. Some moments do seem less than believable, like when Claire punches through glass or when Phil times a helicopter appearance to the second — but they work because we want them to work. We want the Fosters to win, though not in the same way that we want Mr. and Mrs. Smith to win; unlike the Smiths, the Fosters are just average people inadvertently mired in a non-average situation. They’re not trying to prove themselves or save the world; they’re just trying to reclaim their zest for life, and when that innocent request somehow unfurls into an affair with guns blazing, the Fosters do deserve our sympathy.

When it comes to humor, the movie neither disappoints or impresses. True, it could have been funnier. If Fey and Carell had contributed their writing chops to the screenplay, it would have been funnier. But both comics make do. Fey is best in her fumbling moments, and Carell is quite good at imitating voices. Had there not been a script at all — had Fey and Carell just improvised — it would have also been funnier. When final credits roll and a blooper reel starts, impromptu Fey-Carell originals follow one after the other, most of which are fresher than those in the film. There can be no doubt that both actors know how to be funny without exaggerated expressions, flamboyant stunts, and over-the-top innuendo. They can make us laugh with a smirk, a raise of the brows, a mere pause, and Date Night allows them to do so; but thrown into that subtle humor are also desperate attempts to be funny — an overdone car chase, maniacal escape ploys, and repetitive one-liners about Holbrooke’s sex appeal (again, why is Holbrooke in this movie?).

Laughs aside, the movie is about trust. It’s about Claire trusting her husband and Phil pulling through for his wife. You can probably predict how the story ends,  but to get there, they do a fair bit of arguing — “What are we gonna do? What are you gonna do?” “Shut up honey!” and a fair bit of reflecting — “How did we get like this?” “Who were you back there?” But there is nothing too existential because a good screwball comedy keeps situations light and real danger at bay, and Date Night does just that.

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