Long Shot ** (2019, Charlize Theron, Seth Rogen, June Diane Raphael, Alexander Skarsgård) – Movie Review

Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen are pleasant company and well cast in the hit-and-miss 2019 romantic comedy Long Shot, in which Charlize plays Charlotte Field, who is standing as US President, and Seth plays out-of-work journalist Fred Flarsky, hired as her speechwriter.

Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah’s script’s attempts to be meaningful and score political points are completely scuppered by its much stronger attempts to raise laughs, many of them silly and slapstick, most of them untruthful. There are laughs, but too many are all of the same kind, mostly about drugs, sex, willies and the F-word. They are there simply to get laughs by shock tactics, and that is the plan for Theron’s comedy attack too.

It is very annoying that Rogen starts off falling out of a window, but much more annoying when they try the same stale trick again with him falling down stairs. Rogen seems way too canny and switched on for these antics, both as a film character and as an actor. Meanwhile Theron acts like the reigning queen of Hollywood, and that’s great, but, good actress though she is, it is impossible to believe she could be an American President or be besotted with Rogen’s boringly schmucky Fred Flarsky. Fred is not even slightly likeable, which is odd because Rogen is.

Nevertheless, Theron and Rogen are game for everything, certainly game for a laugh, when the script hands them anything like a good one. Nobody else gets a look in. Alexander Skarsgård has a rotten support role as the Canadian Prime Minister James Steward.

And at 125 minutes, it is around 15 minutes too long. That is a long shot.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

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