SummaryNancy (Lake Bell), is done with dating. 10 times bitten, 100 times shy, she’s exhausted by the circus. So when Jack (Simon Pegg) blindly mistakes her for his date, no one is more surprised than her when she does the unthinkable and just —- goes with it. It’s going to take a night of pretending to be someone else for Nancy to finally Man ...
SummaryNancy (Lake Bell), is done with dating. 10 times bitten, 100 times shy, she’s exhausted by the circus. So when Jack (Simon Pegg) blindly mistakes her for his date, no one is more surprised than her when she does the unthinkable and just —- goes with it. It’s going to take a night of pretending to be someone else for Nancy to finally Man ...
The film is rife with contrivances and clichés, but it engages with them in a respectful and clever manner, enough to sell even the silliest ideas. Man Up knows what it is, and the result is unexpectedly refreshing and exceedingly charming.
A well done and consistently funny romantic comedy. The entire cast did a good job in their respective roles and the film was well directed. It is definitely a romantic comedy that I'd recommend.
A romantic comedy with a different approach, she steals someone else's blind date. Sounds like a train wreck of a story line, but this is a movie so of course they hit it off. In a film like this, it's the actors that make it good or not. Lake Bell (with an English accent) and Simon Pegg really make the movie. Must be something in the facial expressions, the throw away lines, but they are good separately and together.
With Lake Bell and Simon Pegg as the would-be couple involved, the emphasis is squarely on comedy. There’s some romance in there, too, but it’s nicely twisted, just enough to keep things fresh and funny.
Both actors stay sharp through some pretty degrading moments, and if Palmer and screenwriter Tess Morris are bent on serious button-pushing in the closing scenes, at least they garnish it with playfulness and wit.
The wistful and poignant stuff doesn’t play as well as the surprising setbacks to romance, many of them delivered by the weirdly randy Sean at the most opportune times.
Lake Bell and Simon Pegg's star wattage isn't enough to distract from the sense that their characters are almost exclusively defined by their single-ness.
Probably one of the best romantic comedy out there, it isn't cheesy, the director made a couple of great calls, there are some hilarious moments but the best things about this movie are Simon Pegg and Lake Bell performances.
Sometimes the right thing comes from the wrong.
Another excellent Simon Pegg movie. This is his fourth movie I'm seeing inside a month and I enjoyed them all, especially 'Hector and Search for Happiness' was my favourite. This was a romantic-comedy that takes place in just one evening. A story about blind dating, boy meets girl, they spend a quality time by sharing the details and later turn against each other. So a recycled old theme that was very well crafted.
If you see the poster what does the tagline says, well, that's what I was looking for. I had 'Date Night' in my mind, and thought it might be an altered British version. Other than that I was truly not expecting anything special, but a normal comedy, maybe sloppy. And it does only until a certain stage of the story, but 30 minutes later it overturns. So the best narration briskly took a slide towards joyous ride in the remaining 1 hour.
I think, for right now Simon Pegg is my favourite British actor and you know the reason that I stated in the first paragraph. Lake Bell, who donned in a director's hat in her recent feature was so good on a 34 year-old role she played in this film. Together they were so perfect, one of the best on-screen couple with a wonderful chemistry. It was a story of two middle aged odd guys whose lives were **** for some reasons. They meet accidentally and bond well. Once the truth got out, they repel away, but they both have something in common and that puts them on a test once they decide to correct the mistakes they have made.
"After this shot I will stronger,
wiser and finally moving on."
At some stage in the life every person will going to be in their 30s and 40s (and some were had been there) like the couple from this film. The life won't be the same for everybody like that shown here, but can be understood, because that's the experience that define it. Despite romance crisis about the middle-aged guys, many dialogues were excellently written and funny as well. A couple of lines really made me worry and I can't just ignore by saying it was just a flick.
Kind of easy to begin a story, like we're standing in an open ground and decide to move any direction we want in our 360º angle. But development is the key factor in the movie making and this film outshines. The real challenge was how to end it and once again it was a beautiful conclusion, even though I knew it was so cliché for a romantic-comedy.
Overally looked a fairy-tale like theme, which irresistible if you love touching romantic stories. Definitely a good movie from the director of 'The Inbetweeners' and I'm going to recommend it for those who also liked the similar movies below I mentioned. But remember it's only cinematically amusing than being realistic.
7½/10
Simon Pegg tries to pivot his comic skills to a romantic angle, as he plays a man on a blind date (with Lake Bell). Turns out she’s the wrong person, but she doesn’t tell him, so they go on to have a fun time. As expected, their initial awkwardness gradually turns into affection. Pegg is almost manic trying to ramp up his charm, while staying funny. Bell embodies her self-conscious, unhappy character with easy effort. While there’s nothing especially new here, the zippy pace, silly situations and overall enjoyable performances create a mildly-screwball, somewhat amusing romcom.
Some funny scenes, but this film is entirely predictable as a rom-com, even down to the chase scene at the end. I feel the characters straying too far from the realm of believability for me to care about them. Good performance by Pegg, though I found Lake Bell's character to be somewhat unlikeable, a critical flaw for a film such as this. I found it shameful to see a great actor like Rory Kinnear reduced to a throwaway role.
Although Simon Pegg is not credited with any writing on this film, one always expects that his presence will guarantee a hilarious film that is absurdly complicated, intriguing, and great fun to watch. But this time, maybe not so much. Pegg's fast-talking, nervous character, Jack, who mistakenly thinks he has just met his perfect match on a blind date set up by a friend, is certainly a tour de force that provides some psychological insight into a motor mouth who is perpetually engaging Freud's free-associative method. However, Jack's emotional journey does not have the expressive intensity or uncanny absurdism to make the film a study in brilliant comedic discourse—not quite achieving that signature blend which can be recognized as pure Peggian.
The chemistry between Nancy (Lake Bell) and Jack is too overstated to be a comedic adventure that is also appealingly intellectual. They both carry around notebooks with mantras (such as "learn French" and "get stronger thighs") and other simple self-help exercises. The constant referencing of these **** notebooks by both characters is a major thread in the plot. To establish that they accidentally fall in love, the film resorts to a montage of images showing the two lovers acting wild and crazy at the bowling lanes, with Nancy often in kneeling positions to show off her derriere as viewed in jeans that are so tight, the seams are surely about to split open. Presumably, this gives Jack more incentive to fall madly in love.
Bell's character is particularly problematic. Nancy is also a jittery talker, but her persona is a bit darker than Jack's, for she is disillusioned and jaded about the state of her love life. She has nearly given up on the singles scene, preferring to avoid a party and stay in her hotel room, eating by herself and watching “The Silence of the Lambs,” which for bizarrely unexplained reasons, she knows by heart. Nancy is an odd admixture, acting like the British answer to a ditzy Annie Hall (Bell is actually American), but without the saving grace of being lighthearted, naive, and charmingly adorable. Instead, Nancy combines Annie Hall with the protagonists usually played by Woody Allen, a disenchanted Sad Sack who feels like an eternal loser at love. She is sardonic, hostile, and withdrawn, but unlike Allen's characters, she is not engaged in a deeper philosophical quest to resolve her sense of alienation. (And an almost incomprehensible dialogue about “The Blow Job Paradox” does not count as a philosophical system.) In the end, her quest is rather basic, if not positively adolescent—she simply needs a boyfriend.
The resolution to the dilemma of the mistaken identity and the resulting bond between Nancy and Jack becomes increasingly predictable and not terribly humorous. As far as Simon Pegg movies go, this one has its moments, but it merely skims the surface of Pegg's prodigious talent.