DATE NIGHT

title: DATE NIGHT
year: 2010
cast: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Mark Wahlberg, Ray Liotta
rating: **

The tale of a husband and wife who’ve been married too long. They have kids, a scheduled routine, and no sex life. So they go out on a "date" to a fancy restaurant, but there are no tables… Until the waiter calls out the name of a party with a table for two, and when no one shows up, Steve and Tina pretend be the couple. Thus the adventure begins as two thugs, thinking they're someone else, escort them into an alley and, at gunpoint, want a flash drive containing… Well that’s the plot, or what Hitchcock calls the “McGuffin”: an essential element the audience needs but doesn't really care about. With Steve Carell and Tina Fey, they’re most likely hoping for a lotta laughs. Well there aren’t too many. The look of the film is grainy, the colors blown-out like a modern thriller, and with car chases and gun-toting, nasty (though not very formidable) villains, you’ll forget it’s a comedy for more reasons than not being very funny. Although Carell and Fey have a few chucklesome moments, it’s an uneven ride. And Mark Walhberg contributes a glorified cameo as a shirtless secret agent providing imperative information much too easily. But thankfully his shortcuts bring the screen-time to a minimum, because the running-around gets tiresome, quick.