Many critics and moviegoers, myself included, often complain about the demise of the studio comedy, questioning how it has suddenly become so difficult for the big studios to release four or five genuinely funny, well-crafted movies each year. There's such a dearth of this kind of solid, mainstream fare that when 2018 delivered both Game Night and Blockers in such a short period of time, it felt like a godsend. There are obviously a multitude of reasons for this disheartening development, but I think there's one significant, underrated aspect that has fundamentally altered the way comedic content is consumed: the advent of social media. Every day, several times a day, friends will send me jokes, ranging from memes to absurdist parodies to unreasonably specific, niche humor. When anything happens in the news, Twitter is quick to disseminate such a glut of humor that something funny from yesterday already feels like old news.
Now, to be clear, this hasn't completely killed the mainstream comedy, as funny films like Olivia Wilde's Booksmart and those two aforementioned 2018 comedies have managed to deliver an amusing experience that can't quite be achieved while browsing through Twitter. But the pervasiveness of satirical commentary has an undeniably negative effect on a film like Long Shot, which is making a concerted and targeted effort to critique contemporary U.S. politics. Led by two reliable stars in Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron, the film follows Charlotte Field (Theron), the current Secretary of State and an aspiring presidential candidate. When the bumbling, incompetent President Chambers (Bob Odenkirk) leaves public office for a career in Hollywood, Charlotte becomes the de facto front-runner in what's sure to be a contentious race.
However, she's a woman in a male-dominated field, and it's going to be a Herculean task to run a smooth campaign that can convince the prejudiced populace (and the disastrous news media) that a woman is "likable" enough to be president. Enter Fred Flarsky (Rogen), a Resistance journalist fighting the good fight against media conglomerates and corrupt politicians. After a chance encounter at a party, it's revealed that Charlotte used to babysit Fred, and the two re-connect after a decade, eventually leading her to recruit his writing services for the campaign. Naturally, the chemistry between the two leads to a budding romance, which may just be untenable in the current political moment.
Within the confines of a romantic comedy, Rogen, director Jonathan Levine, and screenwriters Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah take the opportunity to comment on the political nightmare of our post-2016 landscape, where gender bias is widely discussed, corruption exists in the open, Fox News kills our culture on the daily, and politicians need jokes and "relatable content" to communicate with the masses. There's nothing inherently wrong with taking shots at how rough things have gotten, but Long Shot's approach feels stale and familiar, lacking the satirical bite and novelty to really generate laughs. Levine and company rely on a basic sense of recognition from the audience, a response predicated on the idea that if the filmmakers are merely referencing something from the news, it must be really funny. Worst of all, the constant allusions to Trump-era anger are eventually diluted into a "both sides" treatise on politics, where the facts of the matter are avoided in favor of the feel-good platitudes that the rom-com demands.
Indeed, part of the film's core problem stems from the unholy marriage of Rogen-esque crudeness and the sweeter sensibilities of the romantic comedy, a dynamic that only produces more failed attempts at jokes. It wants to have its cake and eat it too, alternating between the amusing inner workings of the political system, scenes of the main stars trading good-natured blows, and a sequence that features Rogen ejaculating on his own face. The latter bit of extreme raunchiness would be fitting in Neighbors or This is the End, but the tone here is just as hazy and inconsistent as the film's attempts at scathing satire. While the talents of Rogen and Theron make the whole thing tolerable, it's the rare vehicle from these two stars that accomplishes little, leaving them stranded in a political comedy that never plays to their strengths. And worst of all, in a film that strains so hard to be socially relevant, Long Shot rarely says anything of significance.
THE FINAL GRADE: C- (4.7/10)
Images courtesy of Lionsgate
Now, to be clear, this hasn't completely killed the mainstream comedy, as funny films like Olivia Wilde's Booksmart and those two aforementioned 2018 comedies have managed to deliver an amusing experience that can't quite be achieved while browsing through Twitter. But the pervasiveness of satirical commentary has an undeniably negative effect on a film like Long Shot, which is making a concerted and targeted effort to critique contemporary U.S. politics. Led by two reliable stars in Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron, the film follows Charlotte Field (Theron), the current Secretary of State and an aspiring presidential candidate. When the bumbling, incompetent President Chambers (Bob Odenkirk) leaves public office for a career in Hollywood, Charlotte becomes the de facto front-runner in what's sure to be a contentious race.
However, she's a woman in a male-dominated field, and it's going to be a Herculean task to run a smooth campaign that can convince the prejudiced populace (and the disastrous news media) that a woman is "likable" enough to be president. Enter Fred Flarsky (Rogen), a Resistance journalist fighting the good fight against media conglomerates and corrupt politicians. After a chance encounter at a party, it's revealed that Charlotte used to babysit Fred, and the two re-connect after a decade, eventually leading her to recruit his writing services for the campaign. Naturally, the chemistry between the two leads to a budding romance, which may just be untenable in the current political moment.
Within the confines of a romantic comedy, Rogen, director Jonathan Levine, and screenwriters Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah take the opportunity to comment on the political nightmare of our post-2016 landscape, where gender bias is widely discussed, corruption exists in the open, Fox News kills our culture on the daily, and politicians need jokes and "relatable content" to communicate with the masses. There's nothing inherently wrong with taking shots at how rough things have gotten, but Long Shot's approach feels stale and familiar, lacking the satirical bite and novelty to really generate laughs. Levine and company rely on a basic sense of recognition from the audience, a response predicated on the idea that if the filmmakers are merely referencing something from the news, it must be really funny. Worst of all, the constant allusions to Trump-era anger are eventually diluted into a "both sides" treatise on politics, where the facts of the matter are avoided in favor of the feel-good platitudes that the rom-com demands.
Indeed, part of the film's core problem stems from the unholy marriage of Rogen-esque crudeness and the sweeter sensibilities of the romantic comedy, a dynamic that only produces more failed attempts at jokes. It wants to have its cake and eat it too, alternating between the amusing inner workings of the political system, scenes of the main stars trading good-natured blows, and a sequence that features Rogen ejaculating on his own face. The latter bit of extreme raunchiness would be fitting in Neighbors or This is the End, but the tone here is just as hazy and inconsistent as the film's attempts at scathing satire. While the talents of Rogen and Theron make the whole thing tolerable, it's the rare vehicle from these two stars that accomplishes little, leaving them stranded in a political comedy that never plays to their strengths. And worst of all, in a film that strains so hard to be socially relevant, Long Shot rarely says anything of significance.
THE FINAL GRADE: C- (4.7/10)
Images courtesy of Lionsgate
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