Filmmakers, often at the behest of
their glowering corporate overlords, have a longstanding weakness for
undercutting even the silliest of comedies with heaping helpings of "heart." To
cite one particularly egregious example, the feature-film adaptation of Coneheads wasted precious
time trying to get audiences to really feel for a family of space aliens who
talk and act like robots. But sometimes humor and heart prove a
winning—or at least mostly winning—combination. The new Simon Pegg
vehicle Run Fatboy Run—which, in spite of its title, is sadly not about William H.
Taft's presidential campaign—isn't particularly hilarious or moving, but
it's got just enough humor and pathos to render its myriad flaws almost
forgivable. Almost.
Pegg stars as an overgrown
adolescent who has never lived down fleeing the altar at the last moment
instead of marrying pregnant, radiant fiancée Thandie Newton. Years later, he's
reduced to working as a rent-a-cop at a women's clothing store, while Newton—who
understandably has never gotten over the whole
being-ditched-at-the-altar-thing—cozies up to dashing new
boyfriend/marathon runner Hank Azaria. In a last-ditch effort to impress his
family and win back some self-respect, Pegg decides to run a marathon, even
though he's the Hollywood version of fat and out of shape, which is to say,
he's maybe 10 pounds above his ideal weight.
Fatboy contains enough glowing references
to Nike that moviegoers will undoubtedly wonder when exactly the venerable shoe
giant opened a filmmaking division as a promotional tool. Co-screenwriters Pegg
and prominent snarketeer Michael Ian Black, meanwhile, never adequately convey
what the almost distressingly gorgeous Newton saw in Pegg, beyond perhaps a
strange fetish for underemployed losers. After initially depicting Azaria with
unexpected affection, Run Fatboy Run disappointingly transforms him into just another hiss-worthy
Borington Q. Stuffingstein, little more than an artificial roadblock on the
road to reconciliation. Yet Fatboy nearly succeeds in spite of itself, thanks to Pegg, who
makes a character who does some detestable things seem strangely likeable.
There's bittersweet humor in watching Pegg struggle to become the man he and
his family need him to be, but this is still the sort of formulaic,
high-concept fare it's easy to imagine Black dryly lampooning in his capacity
as VH1's in-house smartass.