There's Something About Fred

You got to hand it to him.  Seth Rogen, the “loveable” schmuck (unlike that annoying schmuck Jonah Hill for instance) who rose to fame with his friend Judd Apatow in the cult TV hit series ‘Freaks and Geeks,’ has a certain way with women whom by all rights should be way out of his league.  He knocked up Katherine Heigl in ‘Knocked Up,’ starred in amateur porn with his girlfriend Elizabeth Banks in ‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno’ and made a couple more babies with Rose Byrne as his missus in ‘Neighbors’ and its sequel, thereby giving false hopes and unrealistic expectations to overweight thirty-something slackers the world over that they, too, can score hot chicks.  He’s done it again (high five everyone!) in his latest movie, the aptly titled ‘Long Shot,’ as the hot-to-trot US Secretary of State played by Charlize Theron somehow found his gruffy liberal journalist (think younger version of Michael Moore) the perfect aphrodisiac.

 

‘Long Shot,’ directed by comedy veteran Jonathan Levine (‘Warm Bodies,’ ‘Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates’), is one of those movies that must be seen to be believed.  Granted, there was a history between the two when they were teenagers in that Theron’s Charlotte babysat Rogen’s Fred Flarsky (yeah, she fell in love with a guy named Fred Flarsky) who had a crush on her, and “beauty is only skin deep,” but even so I find myself shaking my head with disbelief more times than I would care to admit, especially when she had a much better suiter in the guise of Alexander Skarsgård’s handsome and charming Canadian Prime Minister.

 

In keeping with the R-rated comedies he’s known for, there’s a certain level of raunchiness and gross-out gags (including a scene that’s reminiscent of the hair gel – in this case beard gel, oh boy! – scene in ‘There’s Something About Mary’) that some may find a bit embarrassingly uncomfortable.  That’s just the way it is with these Seth Rogen movies.  They make us believe for 90 minutes or so that ugly fat men can have their way with willing statue-esque beauties without being rich.  Yeah, right.

Grade: B-