Date Night

Tina Fey and Steve Carell, two of mainstream America’s funniest people, team together—this time not at NBC. Despite a plot that’s nowhere near new and contrived action sequences, the duo manage to make Date Night a marginal moviegoing experience.

Monotonous parents Phil and Claire Foster (Carell and Fey) make up your typical, middle-aged couple stuck in a rut, forced to get their kicks from a weekly book club and organized date nights. To spice things up a bit, Phil takes Claire on a romantic dinner to a trendy Manhattan hotspot. Arriving without a reservation, Phil spontaneously decides to take another couples’ table (how wild!). Unbeknownst to the Fosters, said couple possesses incriminating evidence wanted by an influential thug who sends his minions to retrieve the evidence and kill them. A night of innocent escapades turns into one of fleeing from thugs, breaking into buildings and grand theft auto.

Director Shawn Levy, most recognized for the Night at the Museum movies, balances comedy and action to keep the audience satsified. At times, though, the film feels more like an extended sitcom episode. Perhaps because of this fact, Fey and Carell grasp the farce of the plot and provide the core of the comedy, and the mediocre-at-best dialogue elevates in the hands of the seasoned performers. Some celebrity friends help to envliven the plot, especially the vain Mark Wahlberg (who can’t keep a shirt on during the entire movie—much to every female in the cinema’s delight) and dim-witted duo James Franco and Mila Kunis.

Watch the movie, but keep in mind exactly what it is—a cliche story with embellished action scenes and a humorous cast.