What little to write about when reviewing a film that amounts to no more than a riff on one cliche after another, smartly combined to form one larger cliche in itself. What little to make a movie about... Walk of Shame is a very simple, silly movie that appears to think it's so much more than that. Writer and director Steven Brill endeavours to position this knockabout comedy as part wry social commentary, though plainly puts precious little effort into realising said endeavours. And it's hard to enjoy the absurdities in the execution of his concept when Brill keeps insisting on their viability as real-life, everyday problems. The smart, likeable but rather-too-wholesome actor Elizabeth Banks plays a local network news anchor who encounters one manic mishap after another on a particularly epic walk of shame en route to a major job audition. This involves plausible incidents such as her car being towed, and less-plausible ones such as her taxi driver mistaking her for a stripper, demanding four lap dances from her, pointing a gun at her and then receiving a massage from her by one of those corny coincidences that only occurs in movies like this. Or in real life, I suppose, as Brill might want you to think. Possibly a little bit sexist and definitely a little bit racist, Walk of Shame occupies a curious territory between caustic and cautious, which results in a huge variation in the content and the success rate of the jokes. It's funny when a gang of crack dealers mistakes Banks' character for a crack whore, but less so when a pair of incompetent police officers does the same - is it only me that finds unethical police behaviour in the movies wholly unfunny? Maybe that's all a part of Brill's social commentary. Here's my commentary: NEXT!
No comments:
Post a Comment