Print
Email
Del.icio.us
Digg it
I really, really wanted to like She's Out of My League. Star Jay Baruchel has been stealing scenes for years in films like Tropic Thunder and Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist and the concept of the film sounded like the perfect vehicle for this talented young man to drive to stardom. So, it pains me to say that the wheels come of this comedy pretty quickly and Baruchel is left with nowhere to go.
Baruchel plays the sweet-but-awkward Kirk, a TSA employee at an airport in Pittsburgh. He's very slowly getting over a break-up with the horrendous Marnie (Lindsay Sloane), who is still close enough friends with Kirk's awful family that she's at the house all the time and even goes on family vacations. Kirk's surrogate family (and the one that's much better to him than his actual bloodline) is comprised of his three best friends at work – the sweet Devon (Nate Torrence), studly Jack (Mike Vogel), and over-the-top Stainer (T.J. Miller). Into this circle of testosterone falls the beautiful Molly McCall (Alice Eve), the kind of girl who mostly exists primarily in male fantasies. To be brief, she loves hockey and looks great in lingerie. Despite all human understanding of "dating leagues," this "hard 10" falls for Kirk, a “5” at best. Kirk's friends can't believe it. His family thinks it's some cruel joke. Even Molly's bitter friend Patty (Krysten Ritter) can't understand it. All of the discussion about the oddity of this beauty dating this beast leads Kirk to second guess his future with Molly and make some really bad social decisions. Comedy ensues.
Clearly modeled after the "hot chick, funny guy" formula of Judd Apatow comedies like Knocked Up, She's Out of My League is far from a complete disaster. Most notably, Baruchel makes it out completely unscathed. In fact, the piece would have been far worse without him. Torrence has a sweet comic sensibility that works and Ritter actually steals her scenes with an abrasive energy unlike anything else in the piece. As for the rest, Eve is still just a pretty face to this viewer, Miller overplays every single punchline, and Kirk's family is nothing but a series of clichés. There are a few moments that work and I liked the overall sweetness of the piece in that it's about valuing your self-worth over external appearances or what other people tell you to think but good intentions only get you so far in a comedy that’s not producing actual laughs.
The problem with She's Out of My League is that the script by Sean Anders (who made the similarly problematic Sex Drive) and John Morris and the direction by Jim Field Smith are nowhere near Apatow quality. It’s more American Pie sequel quality. In particular, Smith never finds the rhythm for the piece with some scenes going on far too long and others feeling cut short. The movie has an unusually jerky quality like a song that's just a bit off tempo. Every time I thought it was developing a comic pace, it would stumble, most notably in a few extended, ridiculous gross-out scenes late in the film that Baruchel and Torrence recently revealed were added in reshoots and were a massive mistake. The film only works at all because of the heart brought to it by Baruchel and when the story devolves into bits about his bodily fluids or pubic grooming, it really, really loses its way.
Even though it's not a good film, I almost hope She's Out of My League is a hit because I think some of these cast members, particularly Jay Baruchel, are talented and I'd like to see them in a better project. Much worse films have made tons of cash and I'd hate to see a studio become gun shy about casting Jay as the lead again (or even working with Torrence, Ritter, or even Eve). The failure of this film has nothing to do with him. He's like an MVP hitter on a team made up mostly of lovable losers. Sometimes it's fun to root for the underdog, but you still need to recognize when they lose the game.
Rating: ONE AND A HALF BONES
Release Date: March 12th, 2010
Rating: R
Starring: Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve, Krysten Ritter, T.J. Miller, Nate Torrence, Mike Vogel, and Lindsay Sloane
Director: Jim Field Smith
Writers: Sean Anders and John Morris
- Rate movies
- Write your own reviews
- Create your movie watch lists
- Share lists with the community
