Exactly like every other Dane Cook film.
Image Courtesy of IMPawards.com
Director:Howard Deutch
Notable Cast: Kate Hudson, Dane Cook, Jason Biggs, Alec Baldwin
When it comes to comedy, Dane Cook and Tyler Perry have something very peculiar in common. Both are inexplicably popular and there’s no particular reason as to why. Perry dresses up as a loud, abrasive, African-American woman in low budget melodramas that don’t set the box office ablaze but manage to make fistfuls of money. Cook has skyrocketed to fame for being more of a comic personality than a true stand up, with no real signature jokes or memorable routines. Cook has been able to become one of stand up comedy’s true draws while being unable to translate that success into box office dollars as the next great movie comedian. And yet he still is able to get roles in films, but his starring vehicles tend to have one thing in common: they start out ruthlessly funny and then settle into clichéd, trite moments that kill any good will the first 2/3 of the story endures. My Best Friend’s Girl is another Cook vehicle that follows this rule.
Tank (Cook) has a sort of perverse fun with his friends. After breakups, he is handsomely paid to be such a jerk that women run back to their exes because of their experience with him. They’ll meet cute, he’ll charm them into a date, and then Tank becomes a repulsive jerk on any number of levels to an impressive degree. And such is when his friend Dusty (Jason Biggs) messes things up with his girlfriend Alexis (Kate Hudson). But things get complicated when he falls for her, like in any formulaic romantic comedy, and that’s ultimately the film’s failing point.
It strives to be a perverse pleasure to those who dislike romantic comedies and then inexplicably turns into the type of romantic comedy it had been poking fun at. For the first hour, the film has the sort of groove and style that has made Knocked Up and other films into great riffs on the genre while also being a great genre movie. My Best Friend’s Girl has the same sort of electricity these films do but can’t sustain the energy because inexplicably it makes a 180 degree turn back into familiar territory. Right at a key moment when Tank is ruining the date of yet another gal, and he has a bit of a revelatory moment of his own, the film has the chance to turn into something special. Instead it gets replaced with bad story-telling and one of the worst final acts in recent memory.
It’s not surprising, since one can write that last sentence about Cook’s last two starring vehicles (Employee of the Month and Good Luck Chuck) and it seems to Cook’s motif that latches onto films that are 2/3 of a good comedy. Cook is actually quite funny, per usual, but the same complaint about his other two major comedy vehicles holds true; this is the wrong sort of vehicle for his talents. He has charisma and a presence on the screen, that’s something one can’t doubt; he just doesn’t have a complete character. And that’s true of the rest of the characters in this script.
For a film that desperately tries to be a black comedy, even being self-referential in a weird “meta” moment early on, the film’s script is lacking in character. Romantic comedies need for us to fall in love with the characters to a certain extent in order for us to want them to be together in the end. Deutch has all the makings of a terrific black comedy about romance but his final act gets rid of all the good story-telling for a clichéd and predictable ending. We don’t care about any of the characters because they’re not written as anything meaningful or likeable; it’s almost sad to watch this film and realize that the only reason why we like any of the characters is because they have likable actors behind them. Tank is the only one remotely likeable of the bunch, if only because Cook has charm to spare, but his “best friend” in Biggs comes off as a creepy stalker and it’s hard to imagine that Alexis loves anyone but herself. It makes for a long experience in the cinema. One could forgive these sorts of characters in a darker comedy, as that would be the inherent point of having them around, but in a film that strives to have the best of both worlds it’s disappointing at best and frustrating at worst.
My Best Friend’s Girl follows in the footsteps of films like The Breakup and The Rocker in recent years as barely passable comedies in a decade of strong comedic cinema. If you’re looking for some good comedy, Tropic Thunder and Hamlet 2 are still in theatres and well worth the cash you’d spend on this film.
