Take The American President, Notting Hill, and Pretty Woman and put them into a blender with some modern political subtext, copious amounts of illegal substances, and a handful of jokes about unfortunately timed erections and you’ll get Jonathan Levine’s Long Shot, a film that’s far more charming, sweet, and hilarious than it sounds.
The Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn starring comedy Snatched plays like a ninety minute trailer for a movie that never arrives. It’s the kind of film so packed with promise and a handful of big laughs that one can’t help but be disappointed when it ultimately ends up going nowhere and doing nothing. It’s a frustrating experience, but not a singular one. Plenty of films show great amounts of promise without following through on any of it, but few films of this nature are made by people as talented and usually reliable as the ones who made Snatched.
Like a lot of movies, 50/50 was not exactly what I expected based on the trailers I had seen. Newcomer Will Reiser wrote a script that I knew would be tough at times, but even though I was prepared for the fact that it was a drama about one man’s fight with cancer, I still expected the comedy elements to win out somehow.
