Review: Long Shot

Long Shot
Cert: 15 / 125 mins / Dir. Jonathan Levine / Trailer



If anything, I find it surprising that a politically-framed film so intent on recycling its joke about focus-grouping appears to have landed in cinemas without undergoing any test screenings itself. Or perhaps it did and what we saw tonight was a last-ditch attempt to fashion a hybrid which satisfies everyone before sacking the whole thing off and going to the pub, deadlines-be-damned. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The phrase "all over the place" has become an easy go-to in recent times, round this parish as surely as any other. It can feel overused, in lieu of deconstructing the internal combative forces jostling for position within a movie, and when further analysis seems futile or overwhelming. But occasionally a title really steps up to the bar to claim full and rightful ownership of that sobriquet.

Long Shot really is all over the fucking place.

SECRETARY

So, Charlize Theron plays Charlotte Field, Secretary of State for the US government, ridiculously capable in her job but finding it increasingly difficult in a world which won't take female politicians seriously - especially if they're attractive. As she runs for President, this becomes a major problem. Seth Rogen plays Fred Flarsky, a recently-resigned investigative journalist who writes great copy, but has no social filters. The former used to babysit for the latter when they were younger. Work throws them together, a faltering, odd couple romance blossoms, the powers-that-be disapprove, politics gets in the way, some things explode, there's some crying, and Seth's character is shown jerking off into his own beard. Yeah, they didn't put that in the trailer.

Which leads us to the crux of the problem. That trailer isn't sure what kind of film it's trying to sell. A sassy romantic comedy? A political satire? A light action-movie? Who knows. It's reflective of the finished movie at any rate. It spins far too many plates in a bid to show how clever it is, coming off as an unfocused mess as a result. At its core, this is a comedy - and there are plenty of laugh-out-loud funny moments in there. They just feel like sketches which were assembled after the fact.

The political element is particularly worrisome. While Field's denomination is never openly addressed, the sitting President Chambers (Bob Odenkirk) is depicted as a terminally stupid TV star who's fumbled his way into the top job and is now bored half way through his first term and is looking to make the shift into movies. He's manipulated at every turn by the white-haired right-wing media mogul Parker Wembley (Andy Serkis), the owner of newspapers and TV channels who enjoys a direct line to the Oval Office and wants to keep things that way.

In terms of satire, Long Shot isn't so much delivered with a scalpel as a cricket bat.

CRASH

Seth Rogen is great, although Seth Rogen very usually is. Anyone likely to struggle with that aspect shouldn't bother at all, frankly. His bewildered everyman persona (if 'every man' just wants to get wasted and forget about how complicated the world is) is a constant thread throughout the haphazard fabric of the film. Similarly, Theron gives it her very best as the straight-man archetype to Rogen's clown. Viewers of Arrested Development already know Charlize has a natural talent for deadpan humour, and she displays it with perfection here. But that comedic performance requires building a wall between the character and the audience, a separate aloofness, a barrier to sympathy. And that becomes a bit of a problem when the character turns into a slightly repressed one-note gag.

And so we limp along as screenwriters Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah frantically try to find an appropriate gear, one step away from going full SNL, the early-90s nostalgia employing two full scenes soundtracked by the same Roxette song - as if overtly referencing a classic movie is the same as writing one. By the time we get to the third act, Long Shot actually has the audacity to lecture its audience on open political dialoguing and the crossing of social barriers. Almost as if it forgets that up until five minutes earlier it was quite content being a Liberal Hollywood™ wank-fantasy. Literally. All that's left is realisation, a heartfelt stick-it-to-the-man speech (complete with an actual mic-drop, naturally) and the race-across-town for this to be every piece of shit rom-com from the last thirty years.

The film has long since stopped trying and doesn't care when you noticed.

KEYS TO TULSA

Twenty years ago, Long Shot would have starred Adam Sandler and been absolutely dreadful. Going back ten, Jason Segel would have landed the role in a production which felt horribly misguided. The weird thing is, the Seth Rogen version of this film is probably the best that can be made. And it's still not good enough. It wants to be Forgetting Sarah Marshall meets Vice, but has the insight and commitment of neither.

Long Shot is so busy trying to be all things to all audiences in a desperate play for relevance that nobody involved seems to have realised there's no actual message at the core of it all. How very 2019.

Do you remember how scattershot and unfocused Gringo was? Well, that..



It is not.



Stream it, but if you give up after half an hour I'll completely understand.



For the cast? Fuck no.
For director Jonathan Levine? Still fucking no.

That said, Boyz II Men cameo as themselves here, which will leave you wishing for the hardest first-act nuclear strike since UB40 rocked up in Speed 2…



I'd say that's likely.



I thought there was at one point, but let's go with no.



Level 1: Supreme Leader Snoke is in this. Technically, Mace Windu is as well, briefly.







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