Long Shot: Film Review
Seth Rogen is one of those comedy actors who just makes me laugh. I don’t know what it is about him but you can guarantee I’ll like a film that he’s in and I’ll laugh my head off, but Long Shot went above and beyond my expectations. The best romcom of the year so far!
He plays Fred Flarsky, a journalist who writes controversial editorials for The Advocate. One day they are brought out by a media conglomerate he hates so he quits and through a happy coincidence he bumps into his former babysitter Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron), who is now Secretary of State, and she hires him to be her speechwriter. They end up falling in love, despite her team’s insistence against it, saying it will ruin her chances of running for president.
Long Shot is genuinely the funniest movie I’ve seen in ages. I laughed out loud a lot and I laughed hard, ones that took me a moment to recover from. Most recent comedies have been funny but not quite up to this standard. The hit rate in Long Shot is very good and there are so many witty one-liners, burns and pop culture references that I enjoyed and the humour was more adult and outrageous than I was prepared for. I also loved the music, especially how much prominence Roxette’s It Must Have Been Love was given.
The set-up felt new and the script was pretty strong. It felt different, fresh and modern compared the usual romcom fare for the most part and the two leads are excellent comedians, and it was aiming for 5/5 territory but it fell down slightly at the end. It went on a bit too long and it just became a bit cheesy and ridiculous – and you were already suspending your belief a lot buying that they would end up together (but that’s the whole point of the movie) – and the final scenes (before the prologue) just didn’t feel as well written. That was a shame.
Rogen, as I said before, cracks me up all the time and so that was no different here. I feel like he’s been off my screens for ages so I’m glad he’s back. Theron doesn’t always get many opportunities for comedy and she provided a lot of laughs – particularly in the drugs/wild partying scene – even though she was mostly in the straight man role. More roles like this for her please! O’Shea Jackson Jr. was another hilarious addition as Fred’s best friend Lance and June Diane Raphael and Ravi Patel were so good as Charlotte’s key staffers. Other honourable mentions go to Andy Serkis, who was covered in prosthetics to play evil media boss Parker Wembley, Bob Odenkirk as the President and a TV star (at the same time), and Alexander Skarsgard as the odd Prime Minister of Canada, who has clearly been modelled on Justin Trudeau.
Long Shot is a top-notch comedy that is super funny despite its cheesiness and predictability. This is easily the best and funniest romcom – and general comedy – of the year so far!
In cinemas from Friday 3rd May