Fey, Carell hot in Date Night

By Jackie Ammons     4/15/10 7:00pm

Tina Fey and Steve Carell, comedy superstars of "30 Rock" and "The Office," respectively, are today's funniest television personalities. And together on the big screen in Date Night, Fey and Carell prove they are a force to be reckoned with, creating absolute hilarity as an awkward suburban couple innocently caught up in an action-packed New York City scandal.Date Night finds Fey and Carell as a dorky couple from the suburbs looking for an enjoyable night out on the town. Without the reservation needed to score a table at a hip restaurant, Claire (Fey) and Phil (Carell) steal the reservations of another couple (The Book of Eli's Mila Kunis and Milk's James Franco), gangsters involved in a scandal with the Manhattan district attorney (Night and Day's William Fichtner). With the help of a good-looking security expert (The Lovely Bones's Mark Wahlberg) and an NYPD detective (I Can Do Bad All by Myself's Taraji P. Henson), Claire and Phil work to escape the district attorney's threats in what turns out to be their most exciting date in years.

Date Night is simply an expansion of the type of comedy Carell and Fey use in their weekly television roles, so if you enjoy "The Office" and "30 Rock," chances are you will not be disappointed by the humor in Date Night.

Fey and Carell, in typical fashion, get laughs with self-deprecating humor. Carell constantly leads with overtly dorky comments and Fey follows suit, resulting in uncomfortable yet ridiculously funny scenes, such as when Carell and Fey attempt to go undercover as seductive exotic dancers.

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But while Carell and Fey are undeniably hilarious, the filmmakers fail to take full advantage of their comedic talents by inserting too many action scenes into Date Night. Many of these scenes involve car chases reminiscent of Disney children's comedies: Good guys using fast cars to outdrive the bad guys. While these scenes are funny at times - in one scene, Carell attaches the front end of an Audi to a New York yellow cab's front fender before flying into the Hudson River - Fey and Carell are known for their verbal wit, not necessarily for their physical comedy. One would hope, then, that the filmmakers had erred more on the side of witty lines and verbal sparring between the duo, rather than on the side of slapstick.

But despite questionable script choices, Date Night is funny. Fey and Carell are just as comfortable on the silver screen as they are on your home plasma screen. The plot of the film isn't perfect, but Fey and Carell are a pitch-perfect comedic presence, with snappy one-liners and self-aware, self-deprecating humor. Audiences will say yes to Date Night, even without a "That's what she said" from Carell.

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