I Love You, Man [DVD] [2009]

I enjoyed this American 'romcom' (the latest buzzterm is 'bromance' I believe !) very much; there were no periods of boredom in it for me and plenty of laughs at regular intervals. I can even see myself watching it again, which is not always true of these kind of films and why I've given it 5 Stars !

Obviously, like any film/book/artwork, we all have individual tastes which means nothing will satisfy everyone but this film is sufficiently different that it is likely to entertain those who normally don't like this genre of movie.

The plot, which is the main source of originality, centres on Peter Klaven (played by Paul Rudd) who is a soon-to-be married 20/30-something house realtor (UK = an estate agent !) that soon realises he will have no, or at least very few, male friends of his own to attend his wedding (he has always concentrated on relationships with women); as a result he goes on a quest to gain some genuine male friendships. However, it soon becomes obvious that his previous lack of real male bonding has left him a little naive and cumbersome in how he socialises with men......

This film is a '15' certificate, as there is quite a lot of adult-orientated humour and bad language, but it is not in my opinion rude in an overtly offensive manner - just 'naughty' rude if you see what I mean ! Having said that, as the subjects include such things as oral sex and male masturbation those easily offended may want to go elsewhere...

There is also plenty of other material in here to amuse most people and the real bonus is the way the simple (normally natural, but not to the lead character !) matters of relationships are played out and observed. The lack of any really 'sweet' or overly sentimental scenes, often seen in romcoms, makes this film a little more unusual and all the better for it. The well-written screenplay is also sufficiently simple and straightforward to allow all the characters to really shine and be believable.

Having watched the film I then noticed that the director/co-writer was John Hamburg (who also directed 'Along Came Polly', another comedy film I enjoyed) and so was not too surprised, as his flavour of humour is clearly a bit more quirky than most and explains how this film played out for me.

There are a lot of moments of hilarious 'uncomfortable' humour as you see Peter either stumble his way through seemingly innocuous conversations with other men, as he is essentially clueless about what to say, or awkward/embarrassing 'moments' due to his obvious insecurity when with other men. The whole pay-off is how he eventually achieves one meaningful friendship, which develops enough to help boost his self-confidence and his outlook on life and his soon-to-be wife. It is a bit like the way the Ben Stiller character in 'Along Came Polly' changes but in this case it's due to a male influence, not female !

There are no problems with the DVD image/sound and there are a lot of Extras (including a commentary) on the disc which I've yet to wade through.

So, if you like your comedy to be more adult in nature and a bit 'off the wall' (but not too much) I can strongly recommend this film as something to give a try - you'll hopefully enjoy it as much as I did.

Paul Rudd has really developed into a bankable leading man in recent times and it's a fact well proven here. This is an effortless comedy that ticks all the right boxes. Jason Segel plays his usual lazy self and between them they wring every last drop of comedy out of the script.
The supporting cast are all great too, particularly Jon Favreau, Lou Ferrigno and Jaime Pressley (and the newspaper boss from the Spiderman movies).
There are enough laugh out loud moments in this film to make it worth watching more than once. Mind you, going up to the big fella at the cinema kiosk and saying "I love you, man" was an experience I'll not want to repeat.

so funny, this film exceded my expectations, i expected this to be a typical romcom, romance story with typical over the top comedy that makes you smile but never really laugh, but this is so much better, it's got really touching heart felt storylines that you'd want from a romance film but with real out loud laughs thrown in and the comedy is very realistic and believable with two very likable leads. a proper romcom that can be enjoyed by both sexes equally.