Starring Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton. Written by Simon Pegg, Michael Ian
Black. Directed by David Schwimmer (see interview page 19). (PG)
101min. Opens March 28.
When you assemble some of Britain’s funniest actors with Michael Ian Black as screenwriter (co-writing with star Simon Pegg) and David Schwimmer as director, comedy gold should be in the offing, right? So how’d they cock this up? Mostly by trowelling on the sap and piling on the pratfalls to cover the shortage of decent character-based material.
A disappointment after Pegg’s sterling films with director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), Run, Fat Boy, Run was nevertheless an enormous success in the UK and its mildly subversive take on rom-com tropes may appeal to mainstream audiences here. Pegg plays Dennis, a tubby loser who longs to win back Libby (Thandie Newton), the girlfriend he deserted at the altar. He believes that he can show up her fiancé Whit (Hank Azaria) by running against him in a marathon. With the help of friend Gordon (the great Dylan Moran, a cigarette permanently dangling from his lips), Dennis commences with the training and, of course, the training montages.
Pegg is plenty game but he’s been here before and looks like he knows it. Schwimmer shows his inexperience as a feature-film director by letting promising scenes grow slack and punctuating others with ineffective sight gags and gross-outs. Given the talent involved, Run, Fat Boy, Run should be able to sprint to the finish line. Instead, it spends too much time dragging its heels.