I Love You, Man

You might guess this is another Apatow movie, but it's really just another of the several that have successfully modeled themselves after his revival of the R-rated comedy this past decade. It's actually not that similar stylistically in a lot of ways, although it's hard deny a bit of influence. The cast is pretty great, with all sorts of talent, both familiar and up and coming sprinkled throughout. The pedigree of the writer and director isn't fantastic, but they managed a solid hit with this. Paul Rudd is maybe a bit off-type, playing a guy who gets along with women and is a great boyfriend but never really connected deeply with another guy. After proposing to Rashida Jones, he realizes he doesn't even have a decent candidate for his best man, so he starts going on "man dates" looking for a friend. It's a cute idea, reversing the normal focus of a romantic comedy, and it sort of is the pinnacle of the bromance sub-genre. Eventually he meets Jason Segel, the two hit it off, and then there's the standard formula of growing friendship, troubles, and reconciliation right before the end (if you think that's a spoiler then you obviously have never seen a motion picture before).

So a lot of it is just Paul and Jason hanging out together, and Paul briefly seeing other guys played by a bunch of recognizable faces. Some of the better smaller parts are Andy Samberg and J.K. Simmons as his gay brother and dad respectively, and Jon Favreau as the dick husband of one of Jones' best friends, played by Jaime Pressly. A lot of the humor is fairly typical of modern comedy, although there were some unique bits that were pretty good. Throughout the movie Rudd can't help but try to come up with clever phrases in an attempt to sound cool and failing utterly, with each bomb funnier than the last. The best might have been "totes magotes" in place of totally, but it's hard to say. Certain things like Segel's "return the favor" engagement party toast were gold, and even something that could have seemed uninspired like the Lou Ferrigno part were saved by touches like the matter of fact the way others treat him with reverence. It's not a particularly groundbreaking movie and I'm not sure if I'll remember much of it a year from now, but as a simple funny movie it succeeds fairly well.