Movie Log: Run, Fatboy, Run

Once again, I'm desperately far behind in writing about the movies I've seen. They were all pleasant enough -- decent ways to waste time -- but none of them have given me a burning desire to talk about them. But, since I'm trying to clear Antick Musings' decks in preparation for the big trip, let me see if I can knock off one a day until they're all done for.

Oldest, and possibly least, of those movies is Run, Fatboy, Run, which proves that Simon Pegg can be a generic romantic-comedy hero just like every other vaguely attractive actor. It's a terribly, terribly generic movie, hobbled by a thuddingly obvious script. The actors -- Pegg as the man-boy who needs to learn to grow up, Thandie Newton as the girl he left pregnant at the altar, and Hank Azaria as her requisite too-good-to-be-true new American boyfriend -- struggle to make us care about the plot, which is the usual slop in a new bucket.

There's some decent physical comedy in Run, Fatboy, Run, and the secondary characters, who don't have to pretend to be deep and soulful, are freed to embrace the tackiness and genericism of their parts. (Harish Patel is Pegg's landlord, a grumpy Indian widower with a thick accent and a quick hand for physical punishment when he becomes Pegg's trainer. India de Beaufort plays Patel's sexy daughter, although the scenes in which she becomes a credible threat to Pegg's true love for Newton were obviously left on the cutting room floor. And Matthew Fenton is Pegg's best friend, a role that only exists because otherwise the audience would rightfully assume that he has no friends.)

There are also some strange, pointless villains, in a wasted attempt to add some tension. And another one in the recent series of far-too-concretized metaphors, which shows up at the climax.

Should I mention the plot? Does anyone care? Pegg wants to win back Newton, and to do so he impetuously says he's going to run a marathon in London. Eventually he does race, and finish, against far greater odds than make any sense whatsoever.

The Wife and I saw Run, Fatboy, Run because The Wife thought it looked funny, and liked Pegg in Hot Fuzz. But this is a much more forgettable and minor movie; see it only as a way to waste time and laugh a bit.