Date Night

Meet Phil and Claire. Boring people with busy lives and eccentric offspring. They’re looking for a way to spice up they’re marriage. So they do what any other couple would do: seek therapy.

However, Phil (Steve Carell) and Claire (Tina Fey) have a different idea of what constitutes therapy: running from dirty cops and hitmen while bringing down a mob boss and a crooked politician. Who needs counseling when your life is in peril?

This movie would fail if it's only redeeming qualities were the wild stunts. The couple’s excape from central Park is peppered with humor, but it’s not believable. The chase sequence featuring Carrell crawling between the drivers seats of two cars welded together is beautifully shot - filled with suspense and witty dialog, but the whole thing reeks of improbability. The awkward dancing in the gentleman’s club leading to the ultimate end of the Foster’s adventure will make you laugh (or blush) yet it is so far beyond unlikely to be plausible in anyone’s imagination.

Yet this mash up of a romantic comedy and action thriller succeeds. I was amused and entertained. Date Night is a great movie for a date night.

What makes this movie work is the relationship between Phil and Claire. They’re normal people with an imperfect marriage and spastic children. They could be any of us. Their predictable dinner dates are much like the date nights of most married Americans. Their conversations (while being slightly funnier than the typical human) are natural and wholly believable as conversations that transpire between two married individuals. They react to stress like anyone else. And the many dangers they endure throughout the movie are not remedies, they’re reminders. This isn’t a movie about how Phil and Claire fix their marriage, it’s about how much Phil and Claire love each other. Whatever (hypothetically) happens after the final scene, they will still be boring people with busy lives and eccentric offspring. Yet they are busy and boring people in love.