In Review: Date Night

Have you been waiting for the right movie to take your significant other to? Could a comedy about a date night gone wrong be that movie? What if Steve Carell and Tina Fey starred in this movie? If my questions piqued your interest then I think you should check out their new movie, Date Night.

Set-in modern-day New York City, Date Night seeks to remind us all that taking someone else’s dinner reservation is never a good idea. Phil and Claire Foster (Steve Carell and Tina Fey) are a married couple from New Jersey that are stuck in a rut. Each day, they wake at the same time, get the kids off to school and get themselves off to work. One night a week, they go to a restaurant for a date night where they order the same meal and talk about the same things. For the most part, they are content with their lives until they’re their soon-to-be divorced friends convince them not to be. When the following date night rolls around, Claire decides to shake things up by putting more care into her appearance. Feeling the need to top her, Phil tells her that he’ll get them a table at a trendy NYC restaurant. However, when they arrive at the restaurant, they are rudely told by the maitre d' that they have no chance at getting a table. Resigned to their situation, the couple retreats to the bar area where they are ignored by the bartender. Refusing to give up on the night, they agree to take the reservation of a no-show couple called the Tripplehorns. The night goes by well until they are approached by two men (Jimmi Simpson and Common) who take them out back and threaten to kill them if they do not take them to the location of a mysterious flash drive that the Tripplehorns are holding for ransom. Despite the couple explaining to them that they’re not the Tripplehorns and thus have no idea where this flash drive is the men don’t believe them. Will the Fosters survive the night? Who are the Tripplehorns? What is on this flash drive? Why won’t Holbrooke Grant (Mark Wahlberg) put his shirt on? To learn the answers to these questions you must see the movie.

Directed by Shawn Levy with a script by Josh Klausner, Date Night is an average movie with some extremely funny moments. In other words, we’ve heard this general story many times before, but the writer’s style keeps you interested. Steve Carell and Tina Fey have amazing chemistry and make a believable married couple. Individually, they are amusing and play their parts well. To be sure, the best part of the movie is the credits where you see some of the bloopers from the filming.

Anyone who has been in a relationship for more than a couple of years will tell you that if you get too comfortable and don’t spend enough time trying to keep things fresh, your relationship tends to suffer. Things feel stagnant and boring. You wonder how you got to this point and how you can get your relationship back on track. For the Fosters, they knew something wasn’t right, but they didn’t want to admit it. To summarize a scene between the couple, they didn’t have time to nitpick their relationship because a child always needed to get dropped off here and someone’s dinner had to be made. In other words, there was always something more pressing to attend to than their happiness as a couple. The same can be said of many couples who have let life get the better of them. When date night becomes like every other night the time has come for you to mentally re-evaluate your relationship. Better yet, you should simply lean in, give your significant other a kiss and leave the speech about your day till tomorrow. Your relationship is precious and deserves attention. Your bad day is a side effect of living that hopefully won't repeat itself daily.

As stated before, Date Night is a funny movie. It will provide you with a laugh and distract you from the aforementioned bad day. However, if you’re looking for something brilliant and award-worth this isn’t it. Nevertheless, I hope you’ll see it because Steve Carell and Tina Fey make a great team. Enjoy the movie!