John Hamburg, 2009
Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) has always gotten along better with women than men. In need of a best man for his wedding, Paul happens to meet Sidney (Jason Segal), and they hit it off immediately. But will Peter's new friend jeopardize his imminent marriage (no, it won't. Just saying).I Love You, Man is probably the most blatant of the new sub-genre of bromances, literally grafting the friendly relationship between Peter and Sidney on to the worn-out romantic comedy plot structure. There's the meet cute, the montages, the break-up, and the reconciliation, all present and accounted for. I suppose that's part of the joke, really, but it hurts the film by saddling it with all of the weaknesses inherent in the genre. I suspect even the filmmakers were only sticking to it out of a sense of obligation, because the break-up section lasts all of seven minutes, and you can tell that no one's heart is in it.
While things suffer on a big picture level, though, they do manage to get pretty much every single thing right on a moment to moment level. It's funny, the actors play off of each other nicely, and it's funny. Did I mention it was funny? Funny enough that I still liked it, even though it didn't add up to much.
6.5/10
PS. It's taken me almost a week to get this review up, for no particular reason. This is my public announcement of failure and shame.
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