Review - How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Any subtleties that exist in their television characters seem to go out of the window when they make it to the big screen, and they invariably end up in simple slapstick roles, often the light relief in big budget action films, or playing second fiddle to up and coming American comics.

That is why it was such a refreshing change when Simon Pegg exploded onto the big screen in Shaun of the Dead four years ago. Here was a man who seemed to have successfully translated the anarchy and eccentricity of his television show into the cinema, and audiences, both here and across the pond, lapped it up.
Last year, he followed it with the even more popular Hot Fuzz, and predictably, it wasn't long before Hollywood came knocking offering him his own vehicle, this month's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.
Happily, Pegg has avoided falling into the same trap the many Brits before him. While it is never laugh out funny, and never comes close to scaling the heights of Hot Fuzz or Shaun of the Dead, How to Lose Friends... is far from an embarrassment on Pegg's CV.
The film is adapted from British journalist Toby Young's memoirs of his time as an obnoxious journalist working in the New York offices of Vanity Fair magazine. Despite some initial embarrassments, Pegg's character works his way up the food chain impressing his hard-nosed boss (Jeff Bridges) and almost landing an impossibly sexy starlet (Megan Fox) along the way.
Although it fails in most of its attempts at being about the clash of British and American cultures, the film holds up quite well as a romantic comedy. It will no doubt prove popular with male members of the audience due to the presence of Megan Fox and the fact that it serves as a kind of masculine version of last year's impossibly girly The Devil Wears Prada.
Pegg is undoubtedly at his best while in full-on loser mode, but struggles a little when forced to act as a romantic lead. Kirsten Dunst, as his love interest, is far more successful and gives the most layered performance in the film, helping it to become an improvement on most romantic comedies of the moment.
Whether, the film will open or shut doors for Pegg on the other side of the Atlantic remains to be see, but he at least does not have to return to the UK with his tail between his legs as so many have before him. This week also sees the release of Ricky Gervais' debut as a Hollywood leading man in Ghost Town. Best of luck with that, Rick.

VERDICT: 3 out of 5

See the trailer here: