Merrick here...

Bruno sent in this review of RUN, FATBOY, RUN. This is directed by David Schwimmer (yep, that David Schwimmer) and stars Hank Azaria and Simon Pegg. The movie releases in late October, I believe.

Bruno really liked this movie...so much so he actually reveals his identity to convince you he'snot a plant! This may well be an AICN first.


Here's Bruno...

I wrote a couple of reviews for AICN many years ago, and haven't in the meantime seen any advance screenings of movies ... Until last night, when I was given free tickets to an industry screening of Simon Pegg's and David Schwimmer's new film Run, Fatboy, Run. I took along a fellow-cynic - we're both Altman-loving, Bergman-watching, old-movies-are-better-than-new-ones people, and she dislikes British films in general, so we had low expectations, especially as anything Simon Pegg does seems to be hyped up for months beforehand by his legions of fans over here. It had a lot of the hallmarks of being pretty lazy, run-of-the mill, etc. But at least it was free.

Yet every time I expect Simon Pegg to start being lazy, he impresses me more. This film has the structure of a very traditional loser-tries-to-get-girl back movie, and some signs show through of the rather uninspired screenplay which Mr Pegg gave the once-over. Against my expectations, though, I found myself giggling (and quite often laughing out loud)throughout the movie, not only from the good lines, and the terrific chemistry between Pegg and Dylan Moran (my hero), but from the sheer sense of fun that the movie exudes. It has an irresistable comic energy and (it grates on me to even use phrases like this) left me feeling exactly the sort of feel-good shine afterwards that almost all other comedies fail to produce.

The reason it works so well is almost exclusively down to Pegg's central performance: here, at last, we have a movie actor who is credible as a loser. It is exactly because he plays the scenes of pain, frustration, unhappiness and embarrassment so well (and his ability with those go all the way back to his very first scene in Spaced) that you naturally root for him. He also does a lot of physical comedy without it being annoying (some feat) has an incredibly expressive comic's face - it isn't quite as rubbery as Rowan Atkinson's, but then, unlike Atkinson, Pegg comes across as a real human being. There were also moments (when I caught myself watching closely) of acting so subtle that you wouldn't expect or necessarily notice them in a comedy, and I think he will at some point be very good in a serious drama. Perhaps very soon. I'm certainly looking forward to next year's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which sounds like it could be a good mix of both.

If there are down points, they aren't many. Thandie Newton has always been a nothingy screen presence to me, and seems unaware that she's in a comedy (although apparently she's supposed to be good in Besieged, I think); Hank Azaria continues a run of relatively straight-man roles when you know from his voice work that he can be so funny; and David Schwimmer's sense of cinema is almost totally absent. But it doesn't matter - pat as it might sound, I haven't been so pleasantly surprised by a movie for years.

And if all this sounds too positive, I'd hate people to think I was a plant. So here you go: my name's Bruno Vincent and I work for a publishers in London. So there.

Thanks
Bruno