Movie Review: The Spy Next Door

The Spy Next Door (2010) 

Directed by Brian Levant 

Written by Jonathan Bernstein, James Greer, Gregory Poirier 

Starring Jackie Chan, Amber Valletta, Madeline Carroll, George Lopez

Release Date January 15th, 2010 

Published January 14th, 2010 

It is far too easy to rip a movie like The Spy Next Door. The plot is dimwitted and derivative, star Jackie Chan has far too little mastery of the English language to be given this many lines, and the supporting cast is a minefield of overacting and over-arching cuteness. Way too easy. The harder thing to do is admit that despite all the garbage in The Spy Next Door, there are a few modest pleasures and even a couple of smiles to be had.

The Spy Next Door is an accidental re-imagining of Vin Diesel's Disney flick The Pacifier. Take the world's greatest super-spy and leave him in charge of some precocious pre-teens and wait for wacky stuff to happen. The only difference is where Diesel seems terribly uncomfortable; Jackie Chan seems right at home playing with the kids.

Chan is secret agent Bob Ho, a spy on loan to the CIA from Chinese Intelligence. Bob is tracking a Russian bad guy named Poldark (Magnus Scheving) and his evil gal Friday, Creel (Katherine Boecher) as they seek to destroy the world supply of oil. Helping Bob are a pair of CIA agents, Glaze (George Lopez) and Colton (Billy Ray Cyrus).

Meanwhile, Bob is looking to wrap up his spy career so that he can marry his next door neighbor Gillian (Amber Valletta) who does not know that Bob is really a spy. Even bigger than that obstacle however is getting in good with Gillian's three kids. Farren (Madeline Carroll) is a severely moody oldest daughter who nastily calls her mom Gillian. Ian (Will Shadley) is the middle child and a power nerd who, though only 9, reads physics for fun. And finally 4 year Nora (Alina Foley) who is convinced that Bob is what Ian calls a ‘cyborg.’ Together the siblings look to get rid of boring Bob before he can marry mommy.

Yes, the plot is exceedingly dopey and condescendingly simple. But, you know that when you buy the ticket. Given that knowledge going in makes it easier to appreciate the few charms that The Spy Next Door has. Jackie Chan is now 50 years old and years of daring stunt work have taken their toll. Nevertheless, Chan gives it a go in The Spy Next Door and his brand of martial arts crossed with Buster Keaton style slapstick hasn't been this much fun in a while.

The kids in kid’s movies can be terribly irritating, either too precious or too grating. They are at times both in The Spy Next Door. That said each of the child actors has a good moment or two, especially young Alina Foley. It's cheating to have a sweet little four year old whisper 'I love you bob' as he sings her to sleep with a Chinese lullaby, but it's hard to deny how cute the scene is.

The Spy Next Door is not 'cinema.' This is not a great movie but it never pretends to be. The Spy Next Door is briskly paced, breezy, goofy and, best of all, over before you really tire of its idiot plot. By the lowered standards of kid’s entertainment this qualifies as something I can recommend. Kids won't be harmed by it and mom and dad may actually stay awake during most of it. What more can you ask of low rent kids entertainment. 

Movie Review Grandma's Boy

Grandma's Boy (2006) 

Directed by Nicolaus Goosan 

Written by Barry Wernick, Alan Covert, Nick Swardson

Starring Alan Covert, Linda Cardelini, Kevin Nealon, Shirley Knight, Shirley Jones, Doris Roberts 

Release Date January 6th, 2006

Published January 6th, 2006 

Just how powerful is Adam Sandler in Hollywood? Apparently, in the wake of the release of the comedy Grandma's Boy, he can pick guys off the street and by attaching his name to them, get them on the big screen behind and in front of the camera.. The new stoner comedy Grandma's Boy is directed by former Adam Sandler gofer--okay, "production assistant"--Nicholaus Goosan and stars Sandler's entourage of worshipful friends, led by the charisma vacuum, Alan Covert. Grandma’s Boy  is a stunning example of both the continuing devolution of the modern comedy  genre and the star power of the only superstar ever created by SNL.

The Adam Sandler cult of personality--including Allen Covert, Peter Dante, Nick Swardson and former SNL chums Kevin Nealon, Rob Schneider and David Spade--come together to make Grandma's Boy, a fatally dull exercise in Sandler-style humor that fails to rise to even the low standards of one of Sandler's own films.

Allen Covert stars in Grandma's Boy as Alex, a 36-year-old stoner and video game tester who gave up the yoke of an accounting gig for life spent playing XBox with teenagers. When his stoner roommate gets him kicked out of his apartment, Alex is forced to move in with his grandmother Lilli (Doris Roberts, Everybody Loves Raymond) and her two roommates, doddering pill popper Bea (Shirley Knight) and foul mouthed, sex-obsessed Grace (Partridge Family star Shirley Jones).

At work, Alex and his even more arrested-development pal Jeff (Nick Swardson), a 20-something, footy pajama wearing mama's boy who sleeps in a race car bed, are testing the latest alien shoot-em-up videogame for a company called Brainasium. Kevin Nealon plays their stoner, vegan, boss who hires the super hot Sam (a slumming Linda Cardellini) to be Alex and Jeff's supervisor.

Alex has a rival at work, a game creator named J.P. (Joel Moore, Dodgeball) who, like Alex, develops a quick crush on Sam.  J.P, however, is no threat, as his proclivity for dressing like Neo from the Matrix and speaking in the voice of a robot when nervous or angry prevents him from much of any social interaction. The plot, such as it is, kicks in with Alex having created his own video game but being a shiftless, pothead layabout he does nothing about it until his idea is stolen. Then, in a requirement of the film's plot and title, only his grandma can step in to save him.

That is the story (or at least what passes for a story) that propels Grandma's Boy toward an ending. However, this is not a movie that is concerned with plot. Rather, drop the 'l' and you get what the real subject of Grandma's Boy, getting super high. I have no problem with that, but don’t make a movie if your only idea is to get high and play video games. Just stay home and do that. As a ‘movie’ Grandma's Boy is a stoner movie with all of the stoner cliches of munchies, morons, and a monkey. The monkey is actually a carryover from Adam Sandler’s movies as he requires a funny animal bit in all of his movies, regardless of whether it's funny or not. 

The actors in Grandma's Boy are  obviously Adam Sandler's comic B-team and I imagine behind the scenes, this group of friends are a riot. On screen, I am at a loss to see why they are appealing. Covert and the rest of this cast have little to nothing original or funny to say or do. It’s as if Sandler owed a friend with a screenplay a favor and then realized that even he had a standard he could not drop below. Instead, he handed the script to Covert and tricked a studio into letting his buddies make a movie. 

Poor Shirley Jones. The former mama Partridge humiliates herself in the role of a slutty older woman who claims to have slept with Charlie Chaplin and Don Knotts on different occasions. In Grandma's Boy, Jones thinks she is in on the joke of her character being a sex mad older woman but in fact she is the subject of the joke in which she seduces Nick Swardson's manchild Jeff. Grandma’s Boy is a movie made by people who think that just the idea of a person over 60 having sex is somehow funny. 

The only actor to survive the carnage of Grandma's Boy is the lovely Linda Cardellini. Far more skilled than the "actors" she has chosen to work with, Cardellini gamely throws herself into the stoner fun of Grandma's Boy. However, when it comes down to it, you can tell Cardellini is not inhaling the fumes. Cardellini picks up her paycheck and escapes the fray of Grandma's Boy by affecting an above-it-all air.

That Grandma's Boy did not go directly to the video store is a testament to Adam Sandler's clout and nothing more. That he does not even deign to cameo in Grandma's Boy and still manages to overshadow every aspect of the film. It says something, not anything good, about Sandler’s connection to his audience--the audience for Grandma's Boy likely loved Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison--and how his entourage of pals pretending to be actors are linked to him. Grandma’s Boy doesn’t exist without Sandler wielding his star power to get it made. 

Fans of pot humor, old people having sex, and monkeys may find something to enjoy in Grandma's Boy, but for the other 98% of the movie going public there is nothing to enjoy about this Adam Sandler-less Adam Sandler flick.

Movie Review Gran Torino

Gran Torino (2008) 

Directed by Clint Eastwood 

Written by Nick Schenk 

Starring Clint Eastwood, Ahney Herr, Christopher Carley, Bee Vang 

Release Date December 12th, 2008 

Published December 11th, 2008 

Clint Eastwood is a national treasure. Over his five decades in Hollywood he has created indelible characters, images, and phrases that will live long beyond himself. That iconography brings us to his latest film Gran Torino which combines the modern Eastwood image as a filmmaking auteur and the classic Eastwood icon of a tough guy, man's man. The combination gives life to an odd but engaging drama.

In Gran Torino Clint Eastwood is Walt Kowalski. Walt's wife has just died and the last thing tying him to life outside of the four walls of his decrepit house has disappeared. Walt doesn't appear suicidal but he is certainly unmoored as observed by the young priest (Christopher Carley) who presides over his wife's funeral and who, at the wife's behest, drops in on Walt from time to time.

More than anything, Walt just wants to be left alone. Even his grown sons do nothing but irritate him, one of them by trying to get him to move to an old folks home. Further irritating Walt is the change in his neighborhood. Hmong refugees began moving in more than a decade ago and they now dominate the local populace, much to Walt's dismay.\

As the story progresses, Walt is forced into the lives of his Hmong neighbors when their teenage son, Thao (Bee Vang), accepts a gang initiation that has him attempting to steal Walt's prized Gran Torino. Walt catches him in the act but doesn't call police. When confronted by gang members about his failure, Thao tells them that he won’t try to steal the car again and Walt ends up having to rescue Thao, brandishing a trusty shotgun at the wannabe gangsters. 

This leads to more involvement with his neighbors and eventually a begrudging respect begins to form, mostly thanks to Thao's outgoing sister Sue (Ahney Her) who befriends the old man with beer and really great Hmong food. If you guessed that the gang thing comes back and plays a major role in the movie's finish, points for you. How it plays out however, you won't see it coming. Eastwood is a master of misdirection as both Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby have shown. Eastwood takes pleasure in rarely doing what the audience expects.

There is an odd quality to Gran Torino and it comes in the film's strange sense of humor. Though the movie carries the heavy air of drama there are moments when Walt is dealing with his neighbors, and especially when dealing with his two beefy, lunkheaded sons, where laughs are mined that wouldn't be out of place in a sitcom. I'm not complaining, I laughed. The laughter however is awkward when considering how oppressively serious the rest of the movie is. Then again, there goes Clint, once again confounding our expectations.

Movie Review Gothika

Gothika (2003) 

Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz 

Written by Sebastian Gutierrez

Starring Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr, Natasha Lyonne, Charles S Dutton, Penelope Cruz 

Release Date November 21st, 2003 

Published November 21st, 2003 

The title Gothika seems curious even after you've seen the movie. Only after looking up the film’s website and consulting my dictionary for the definition of the word 'Gothic' does the film's choice of a title become clear. It relates in fiction writing as a horror mystery and in architecture as dark imposing stone structures, buttresses, arches and high ceilings. The title has a double meaning related to the film’s story and its choice of locations, but mostly it just sounds cool. In fact, everything about Gothika from it's super hot star to it's indie credible director sounds cool. Sadly the film never meets its cool potential.

Halle Berry stars in Gothika as criminal psychologist Miranda Grey. Dr. Grey works in a prison for the criminally insane treating female patients under the watchful eye of her husband Dr. Douglas Grey (Charles S. Dutton), the hospital's administrator, and alongside her good friend Dr. Peter Graham (Robert Downey Jr.). Dr. Graham seems to be harboring a rather obvious crush on Miranda.

After working late on a dark and rainy night, Dr. Grey is driving home when she swerves off the road to avoid a young woman standing in the middle of the road. When Miranda goes to help the girl, played by an almost unrecognizable Natascha Lyonne, the girl bursts into flames but not before touching Miranda's face. The next thing Miranda knows, she is locked up in her own hospital being treated by her own staff and her husband is dead.

What else can Miranda do in this situation other than break out of the hospital and investigate the situation herself in hope of finding out whether she actually did kill her husband and why she's being haunted by this ghostly girl? Mostly though, Miranda wants to know for herself if she really is crazy. There is also mystery surrounding her connection to one of her patients, Chloe (Penelope Cruz), who is also being haunted by a dark spirit that may be more real than Miranda's ghost.

Halle Berry is a terrific choice for Miranda because she quickly earns our sympathy and her understated performance early on perfectly sets the stage for her brief meltdown and finally for her more rational approach to accepting her situation and solving her problem. She plays her intelligence on her face with her eyes and her perfectly controlled emotions. Even as the film goes off the rails around her, you never question Ms. Berry's commitment to the role, she damn near saves the movie.

Sadly, no one in the supporting cast has much of an opportunity to make an impression. Robert Downey Jr. continues to be a welcome presence even in an underwritten role. I wished Downey Jr. had more to do in the plot. Mostly, he’s concerned about his friend and nurses his unrequited crush. He has a brief hero moment but the role is otherwise far too bland for someone as talented and charismatic as Robert Downey Jr. 

A big failure of Gothika is how director Matthieu Kassovitz and writer Sebastian Guttierrez never establish the rules for the film. Obviously a film with ghosts isn't playing straight with logic but in a horror film, the filmmakers must establish film logic, a set of rules that govern the film’s created universe. In A Nightmare On Elm Street, Freddy could only come out of a dream if Nancy held onto him and woke up. 

In the recent horror flick, Darkness Falls, you were only a target of the killer if you looked at her. That film repeatedly violated its own rules and thus failed. Gothika doesn't establish its own logic and without it, the story never feels grounded. Why, if the ghost can open doors and manipulate objects, does it need to possess a body? Why use Dr. Grey to begin with? Was it just because hers was the car that happened by at that moment? There are many more questions but they are spoilers. See the movie and see if you can answer those questions. A game might make the movie more interesting. 

There is one moment in Gothika where I was willing to forgive the film’s lack of story logic. It comes when Dr. Grey herself questions the necessity of logic. It's a very funny line of dialogue because it’s a haphazard comment on this moment in the movie and about the movie itself. It’s not an intentional joke, but it is one moment when the need for story logic didn’t matter and I didn’t mind being subjected to Gothika, an oasis of unintentional charm in a desert of horror atmosphere and murky motivation. 

Director Kassovitz does have the other important elements of filmmaking in place. He is terrific at manipulating the camera. The way he keeps the camera moving is hypnotic and unlike David Fincher in Panic Room, the camera moves never seem flashy. In the few moments when the camera isn't moving, Kassovitz finds interesting angles and visually interesting backgrounds.

Gothika makes excellent use of its gothic location though I would hope a prison for the criminally insane doesn’t look so frightening, the people inside are frightening enough.

Gothika has been compared with The Sixth Sense and The Ring but I found it had most in common with the Kevin Bacon ghost thriller Stir Of Echoes. Both films are about normal people driven to mental breakdown by ghosts. Both are about the mystery surrounding the deaths of the ghostly characters. The difference between the two movies is that Stir Of Echoes has the established film logic that Gothika lacked as well as stronger supporting characters. In addition, Stir Of Echoes has the Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black in a prominent role in the film. Gothika, on the other hand, features an awful cover of The Who's Behind Blue Eyes by Limp Bizkit. Ugh! 

Then, as the movie was mercifully coming to an end, they teased a sequel. As if what came before wasn’t misguided enough, this nakedly commercial, ‘just in case this movie makes money,’ sequel tease is a rotten cherry on the rancid sundae that is Gothika. 

 

Movie Review Good Luck Chuck

Good Luck Chuck (2007) 

Directed by Mark Helfrich 

Written by Josh Stolberg 

Starring Dane Cook, Jessica Alba, Dan Fogler 

Release Date September 21st, 2007 

Published September 20th, 2007 

The appeal of comedian Dane Cook has eluded me. I have nothing against the wildly popular comic, I just don't see what's so funny. His stand up repertoire seems to consist of wild, Jim Carrey like gesticulations used to sell underwhelming, punchless punchlines. His physicality is entertaining insofar as mimes trapped in that glass box are entertaining; but for my money, his act isn't all that funny. That's not even considering accusations that the unfunny jokes he tells are stolen from other comics. 

As for Cook's movie career, thus far, it's not quite as funny as his stand up career. His debut, in a starring role, in last fall's Employee Of The Month, was a bland, forgettable romantic comedy with the acting challenged Cook playing off the even more challenged Jessica Simpson. Now, for Cook's latest starring effort, after he tanked in a dramatic role opposite Kevin Costner in Mr. Brooks this past summer, Cook upgrades his romantic partner and still delivers a bland and forgettable effort. Starring opposite the endlessly appealing Jessica Alba, the appeal of Dane Cook continues to baffle the mind in Good Luck Chuck.

Charlie (Dane Cook) has never had trouble meeting women. Staying in a relationship however, has been mission impossible. The odd thing about the end of Charlie's relationships? His ex's always seem to marry the next guy they meet. It happens every time and women are beginning to take notice. A posting on the internet about Charlie the good luck charm turns the serially single Charlie into the most sought after stud in his area code.

Is this newfound appeal a blessing or a curse? Charlie's lecherous pal Stu (Dan Fogler) thinks it's the greatest thing ever. Charlie however, finds it to be a burden, especially when he meets Cam (Jessica Alba) who proves to be the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately, if the curse is real and he sleeps with her he could lose her forever; should she meet someone else.

That is a clean description of a plot that is in reality quite ugly and at times even mean spirited. Mark Helfrich, in his directorial debut, attempts to pull off what Judd Apatow and his creative team did with The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. What is lacking is just about everything that made those two films so ingenious, daring and lovable.

Both Virgin and Knocked Up featured outlandish low humor that some might find off putting. Each film overcame that obstacle by giving the characters equal amounts of heart and humor to offset the raunch. Good Luck Chuck is mostly heartless with only one character we really give a damn about, Alba's Cam is an oasis in a desert of bad. Charlie, or Chuck from the title, isn't exactly detestable but there is very little appealing about him as he launches into a series of heartless sexual escapades to prove or disprove his curse.

The attempt to justify Chuck/Charlie's behavior by giving it the noble purpose of helping lonely girls take advantage of the curse to then meet their true love fails due to the film's vanity. All but two of Charlie's partners are models whose appearance in the film are not meant to propel this plot. Rather, they are used for the prurient purpose of having them get naked and keep the guys in the audience from nodding off.

The two other women, the ones who don't generally meet societal standards of beauty, are used as comic fodder in mean-spirited jokes at their expense. Only a movie as heartless as Good Luck Chuck could think that mocking these poor desperate characters could be a source of humor. An attempt to keep one of the encounters from being completely heartless and mean fails miserably and comes off not only mean but fake and insulting of both the character in question and those of us in the audience.

Dan Fogler is a Tony Award winning actor. I mention this because it kind of blows my mind. How can an actor be so successful in one medium and so remarkably unappealing and unfunny in a different medium. On stage, Fogler is a comic dynamo beloved by audiences. In movies, Fogler is an embarrassment, a remarkably unfunny presence. In his first starring role, the ping pong comedy, Balls of Fury, Fogler was utterly repellent. In good Luck Chuck, in a smaller, supporting role, he manages to somehow be even less appealing. 

As Stu, Charlie's misogynist best friend, Fogler is a breast obsessed plastic surgeon whose hobbies include masturbating into a grapefruit and worshiping the breast implants of Pamela Anderson which he purchased on Ebay. Why anyone thought this character was funny is beyond me. Jonah Hill portrayed a raunchy over the top character in Knocked Up but Hill did it with a charming and vulnerable quality that revealed how that character used vulgarity as a cover for insecurity. There is zero nuance in Fogler's performance in Good Luck Chuck, he's just a creep. 

Even as I was drifting out of Good Luck Chuck, when I wasn't actively being repulsed by it, I did see some moments where this story or this plot might have worked. Cut back on the prurience, strengthen the characters, and give more time to Jessica Alba's Cam, the only truly likable character in the film, and maybe you could rescue this movie from the garbage. That ship has sailed however and what we are left with is a mess of ugly misogyny, disturbing fetishes, and a lame and completely unbelievable  romance. 

Good Luck Chuck makes Adam Sandler's style of humor look good by comparison. 

Movie Review Gone Baby Gone

Gone Baby Gone (2007) 

Directed by Ben Affleck 

Written by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard 

Starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Amy Ryan, Titus Welliver 

Release Date October 19th, 2007

Published October 18th, 2007 

Ben Affleck has long been unfairly maligned as an actor. Yes, he made Gigli and Paycheck and Reindeer Games and they are no picnic, fair. But those movies do not define his talent. The vitriol aimed at Ben Affleck has long seemed like over the top piling on and more than a little jealousy, from my perspective. Now, with the release of his directorial debut Gone Baby Gone, Affleck haters will have to eat their words. In a season of Oscar shortfalls, Gone Baby Gone is the fall season's first film to exceed the awards hype.

Casey Affleck stars in the moody, noirish Gone Baby Gone, based on the Dennis LeHane of the same name. Casey plays Patrick Kenzie, a small-time detective in the slums of Boston. Along with his girlfriend Angie (Michelle Monaghan), Patrick usually handles missing person cases involving bail jumpers and child support deadbeats.

Imagine Patrick's surprise when a family involved in a high profile kidnapping seeks his help in finding a missing four year old girl. Amy Madigan plays the child's concerned aunt who hopes that Patrick can use his familiarity in the neighborhood to get better leads than the cops can get. Needless to say, the cops aren't entirely happy for the help.

Morgan Freeman is Jack Doyle, the local police chief in charge of missing children cases. Ed Harris and John Ashton are the two detectives leading the case who accept Patrick's help grudgingly and quite skeptically. Soon witnesses and suspects begin to pile up and so do a few bodies and Patrick finds himself wrapped in a very dangerous mystery and a moral crisis.

Gone Baby Gone plays like a police procedural but there is so much more to it. As the movie goes on Casey Affleck's Patrick is forced to make choices that no one would want to make. Choices that require an examination of his morals and ethics and his sense of right and wrong. The script by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard doesn't make the decisions easy or overly dramatic. The plot elements of Gone Baby Gone develop organically, natural to the story being told.

It's a rare modern movie that gives characters time to make moral decisions that aren't forced or pathetic. Patrick will be haunted by his choices, right and wrong. The consequences are aired and examined and smartly dispatched in one of the best scripts of the year.

Casey Affleck comes to life in Gone Baby Gone. Long known as Ben's little brother, Casey steps out of big brother's shadow with a performance that combines toughness, street smarts and sadness. Never angsty or overly dramatic, Casey's Patrick reveals himself slowly as just a good man turned into a reluctant crusader by some ugly circumstances and a promise he made to a grieving mother.

Affleck is matched grit for grit with Michelle Monaghan who nails the south Boston accent and the neighborhood's tomboy chic. Sexy with just a touch of naivete, Monaghan is the perfect dramatic and romantic foil for Casey Affleck's street smart tough guy detective. Together they spark with terrific romantic chemistry that gives the perfect impression of a relationship begun long before we meet them.

The third lead character in Gone Baby Gone is South Boston, a hard knocks area of one of America's most well known city's. Ben and Casey Affleck are quite familiar with these streets and this neighborhood having grown up there and as a director Ben Affleck gives gritty life to these downtrodden, drug and crime ridden streets.

That familiar turf is likely what drew Ben Affleck to the work of Dennis LeHane on whose series of novels Gone Baby Gone is based. Like Affleck, LeHane is from Boston and knows these streets, these crimes and these people. The naturalistic dialogue comes from a very knowing place in both Affleck and LeHane and while they are unafraid to expose the dark side of Boston even as you can sense a certain loyalty and love in the way they draw these characters.

Gone Baby Gone is the first film of the fall of 2007 that, for me, exceeds the awards expectations. Casey Affleck's confident and concise performance and the terrific adapted screenplay by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard seem like locks come Oscar nomination time. And here's hoping that the long time, unwarranted public disdain for Ben Affleck doesn't affect his chances of being nominated for directing Gone Baby Gone.

Ben Affleck's work here is as gritty and hard boiled as a young Scorsese with the polish of modern Hollywood production. Gone Baby Gone is Ben's baby and it succeeds on his talent. This one is a must see.

Movie Review Going the Distance

Going the Distance (2010) 

Directed by Nanette Burstein 

Written by Geoff La Tulippe 

Starring Justin Long, Drew Barrymore, Charlie Day, Christina Applegate, Jason Sudeikis

Release Date September 3rd, 2010 

Published September 2nd, 2010 

The trailers and commercials for “Going the Distance” do not promise much. It's fair to predict, upon seeing the film's cutesy promos, that you are getting a trite and predictable romantic comedy. The actual movie however, though it is a romantic comedy, is something more than a series of rom-com clichés. In Going the Distance, stars Drew Barrymore and Justin Long display stunning romantic chemistry that brings life to the story of two people attempting a long distance relationship. These two terrific actors, once a real life couple, have each other’s vibe down and they bring a real feeling and romantic vitality to the conversations that these two characters have.

Garrett (Justin Long) has just bombed badly on his girlfriend's birthday; he didn't get her a gift. Dumped because he thought she meant it when she said not to get her anything, Garrett finds himself downing beers with his pals Dan (Charlie Day, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and Box (Jason Sudeikis) when he spots Erin (Barrymore), a hard drinking, foul mouthed, one of the boys who happens to be tragically pretty and utterly irresistible.

Unfortunately, Erin is not in New York for long, only six weeks before she has to move back to San Francisco to finish school. The two agree to keep things casual and spend the next 6 weeks attached at the lips. When the day comes for Erin to go home, Garrett pitches a long distance relationship and “Going the Distance” eases comfortably into the expectations of a romantic comedy but with just enough surprises to keep things lively and fun.

Nanette Burstein is best known for the unconventional documentary “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” based on the life of Hollywood legend Robert Evans. In that film Burstein steered around the limitations of typical documentary filmmaking by toying with the form and allowing the pompous yet fascinating Evans narrate his own life as if he were sitting on the couch next to you recounting his life story while images flashed all around as if in 3D broadcast from his mind.

Experimenting with the form of a romantic comedy seems, to me, to be an even greater challenge but one that Ms. Burstein was up for and though “Going the Distance” is no radical rejiggering of the form, her more modest innovations liven things up. For instance, when Garrett and Erin go on their first date Burstein switches from conventional film stock to handheld digital. The movie is briefly wrenching but it does increase the intimacy of this romantic moment by taking advantage of natural light and seemingly un-choreographed street scenery. She sticks with the device for the following few scenes, a montage of the six weeks of getting to know you time and that works as well.

The other innovation is the use of four letter words. Yes, we have heard cursing in movies to the point of being completely jaded but there is something in the way Drew Barrymore says the F-word, something so delightfully naughty and unexpected that it plays kind of sexy in a strange way. Co-star Jason Sudeikis also makes clever and unexpected use of obscenity that, because of years of SNL censoring, has a jarring yet hilarious effect. Sudeikis has never seemed more natural and appealing on screen as he does in “Going the Distance” describing the challenge of a long distance relationship and dreaming up what Erin might be doing in California in filthy/funny detail.

Finally and even rarer still, the trailer material for “Going the Distance” has the rare quality of being the least interesting and least funny bits from the film. So often we have complained about movies using the best gags for the trailers and commercials but in “Going the Distance” the weakest and most conventional gags are used in the promos while the best stuff is in the movie. A surprisingly R-rated and unconventional romantic comedy, “Going the Distance” thrives on the exceptional chemistry of Drew Barrymore and Justin Long and the daring if not boundary breaking direction of Nanette Burstein. 

Going the Distance is a wonderful and welcome surprise.