Checked out the new romantic comedy Long Shot which is about a kind of schluby guy dating the prettiest gal in Hollywood. But, to be fair, at least this time the shlubbiness is part of the plot… so there’s a narrative reason for Seth Rogan to make out with Charlize Theron!
So Long Shot is about a president (played by Bob Odenkirk as a guy who played a president on TV and then got elected president) who doesn’t want to run for a second turn so taps his secretary of state (Charlize Theron) to run in his place. Her numbers with the public are good except for her humor rating so, when she runs into an old childhood friend (Rogan), she hires him as a speech writer. They spend a lot of time on the road getting reacquainted so he can write her some good funny speeches and, wouldn’t you know it, they start to fall in love. Of course, the public might not be thrilled at the idea of elegant, beautiful Theron dating schlubby Rogan.
So, yeah, a semi-political romantic comedy that really nails the romance and the comedy. This is a good movie. I laughed quite a bit and Theron and Rogan have good chemistry. Not that this is her first comedy, but Theron is really funny in this flick and her character has more depth than usual. Rogan kind of plays Rogan but that’s fun too. I guess if I have any level of complaint on the movie is that, of course, not every jokes lands and there are some surprising tonal/comedy swings in the flick. Usually it’s a romantic comedy with a little political humor… but sometimes it shifts over to a stoner comedy and then a raunchy gross-out comedy. Most of which is funny too so not really a big complaint.
But, hey, generally speaking it works and I’m personally very happy that sometimes romantic comedies can still work for me. I’d say check it out. If for no other reason than the trailer for it that ran before Avengers: Endgame where Seth Rogan agreed that Endgame was gonna pretty cool but, hey, maybe if you see that, you can maybe come to see his movie next? Deal.
Score: 84