I saw I Love You, Man a while ago, but I have put off writing about it cause I didn't really know what to say. This is a comedy that stars two of my favorite comedic actors. I should have loved it. I wanted to love it. However, I did not love it. It is an okay movie, and Seeing Jason Segel and Paul Rudd together is fun to watch. However, it wasn't enough to save it for me.Rudd plays Peter Klaven, a man who just doesn't know how to interact with other men. He is about to be married, and realizes he doesn't have any male friends that can stand up with him at the wedding ceremony. He embarks on a quest to find a best buddy. Enter Segel's character, Sydney, a total man's man. Peter and Sydney form a quick connection, and we get to watch their budding friendship. I really like Paul Rudd as an actor, but he got pretty annoying in this movie. His character is uncomfortable around men, and how he acts in some early interactions make you almost cringe, but it is kinda funny. As the movie progresses he does the same shtick every time. It wasn't THAT funny at first, and it definitely isn't funny to see the same thing over and over again. He went a little overboard on the awkwardness, and it really didn't work for me. I understand that this is a movie and it is heightened and exaggerated, but doing the same thing time after time doesn't add anything to the comedy. Overall I think Jason Segel did a much better job with the character of Sydney. I thought he was funnier and more relate-able.
Another complaint I had with the movie is all the distractions and tertiary plot lines it throws at you. The two main actors are great and that is the relationship the whole movie is, and should be, focused on. Why throw in all these other actors and random crap? It only serves to take us out of the main story and disconnect us from the characters. Which brings me to my last point. I never felt like I cared what happened to our main character. He never felt real. They have some really good bits, but overall it seemed incomplete. I felt like the plot was only there to serve the jokes and to give a vehicle for these actors to be funny. I never really bought into the relationship between Peter and his fiance and I also didn't buy into the way Peter reacted in confrontations.
This is a case where I probably had too high of expectations going into the movie. I was expecting something really good, and this film just falls short. I feel that Role Models and Forgetting Sarah Marshall are both funnier, and better made films than I Love You, Man. However, it still has enough funny scenes to make it worth watching. I know most people liked this movie better than I did... I guess I just had the bar set too high.
-deric
Filed Under: Comedy, Rudd, Siegel