Review: 'Date Night' falls flat

Date Night
Cast: Tina Fey, Steve Carrell, Mila Kunis, James Franco, Mark
Wahlberg, Kristen Wiig, Shawn Levy
Director: Shawn Levy
Rating: *

Claire(Tina Fey) and Phil Foster (Steve Carell), both in their forties, are a suburban couple slogging through their daily lives and marriage. They have their date nights every week but there is no sparkle in their marriage anymore. They decide to visit a trendy Manhattan Bistro in an attempt to re-ignite their marital spark- only to fall prey to a mistaken identity crisis that could well cost them their lives.

Familiar and predictable, this comedy of errors with the over-the-hill pair of Steve Carell and Tina Fey has very few moments of credulity. J Klausner’s script takes two normal people and subjects them to a long night of abnormal encounters, transforming them from mild-mannered suburbanites into resourceful heroes. As a couple who have lost their ‘togetherness forever’ moorings Tina Fey and Steve Carell are credible enough.

It’s their antics following the bistro contretemps that is painful to watch. The talented duo fail to strike sparks off each other and their comic timing appears woefully off. The writing is extremely pedestrian. The dialogues lack in wit and most of the events that constitute the plotting, appear stagey and unexciting.

The narrative contains a series of stale comedy setpieces – gunfights and car chases that look expensive but provide very few thrills and even fewer moments of laughter. Cameos by Mark Wahlber, James Franco, Mila Kunis, William Fichtner, Taraji P Henson, Ray Liotta and Mark Raffalo only add more weight to the general dissatisfaction!