07/30/09 - I Love You, Man

I Love You, Man (2009, 105 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1155056/

I had seen the previews for this movie when it came out and it looked really good. Then, I never saw it in the theater. So now I finally get the chance to watch it. It's another comedy, but I wanted to see how it stacked up to some of the comedies I've seen lately.

The movie follows Paul Rudd as Peter Klaven as he realizes he has no good male friends for his wedding to Zooey (Rashida Jones). He accidentally meets Sydney Fife (Jason Segel) and they begin a friendship. Complications arise between Peter and Zooey due to his new found friend and they almost put a stop to the upcoming wedding.

Obviously with a movie called I Love You, Man, I have to look at the acting of Rudd and Segel. If this doesn't work on screen the whole film fails. Fortunately, it works great. Rudd bumbled around and says the stupidest lines in such a convincing way, fully embodying his character. Segel absolutely steals every single scene that he's in. He's the guy that seems to have it all together while also being lost in the past. Segel, somehow, plays this character absolutely flawlessly. His comedy is a unique style (as also seen in How I Met Your Mother and Forgetting Sarah Marshall) but that meshes well with my own humor. Combining this with Rudd's performance (I really don't recall seeing Rudd in anything before this) creates a great duo that never fails to entertain.

Next, I have to look at how the comedy actually comes off to me. I'm not really a fan of vulgar humor and this comedy doesn't seem to really have much. Almost all the humor and jokes are legitimately hilarious and witty. I actually found myself laughing out loud multiple times - something that very rarely happens unless I watch this sort of movie with a loud group of friends. This came as a huge surprise to me as I can't remember the last time this has happened.

The story itself is oddly intriguing. It moves really slowly and not a lot really happens in the movie. Yet somehow a lot happens as well. I looked at the time at one point and I was only 30 minutes in yet I felt a ton of scenes had happened. This doesn't mean the movie was going by slowly, but rather that I really got my "bang for the buck" with a full 105 minutes of comedy. Yet when I sat back and thought about what I saw, I realized not a whole lot of "plot" actually happened. It's oddly enjoyable for how little actually happens.

Overall, I gave this movie an 8/10. Not many comedies actually make me laugh like this one did. This is quite honestly one of the funniest movies to have come out of theaters in the past few years. I would definitely watch it again.