Quick Movie Review: Walk of Shame

If you can withstand the first 20 minutes you're in for a fairly good farce comedy with some subtle humor on the side. Our film begins with a montage of inorganic imitations of famous viral news bloopers that would be pretty funny if they had showed the actual clips, since none of them exerted the same spontaneity as the originals. It then shows Meghan Miles (Elizabeth Banks) at the end of the montage having a similar "mess-up" involving cats acting uncontainable while she attempts to tell a news story. The movie continues through another 20 minutes setting up what I am now expecting to be a less-than-decent experience. Her boyfriend leaves and she doesn't get the job she's been wanting, so she goes out with her party-animal friends to a club to meet guys. This is all cliche as can be. She goes back to a guy's place, and after a romp with him she wakes up in the middle of the night and receives a call from her producer informing her that she actually did get the job if she can show up to the station the next afternoon. She goes outside and her car is towed but she can't find the name of the tow company. She then comes across some really annoying characters that are not willing to help her out as they think she is a hooker. I'm cringing. The rest of the movie continues as she attempts to get to the tow yard and ultimately, the news station. Throughout the whole ordeal these cops are trying to catch Meghan, who they think is a hooker starting all kinds of trouble. 

This is a case of a film that I would not personally hail as a great movie, but one that i would watch again (but maybe fast forwarding through the first 20 minutes). Everybody in the film is pretty good with one exception--Elizabeth Banks, who doesn't give it her all as she mopes around the whole movie allowing everyone else shine around her. She's not believable as a news anchor either. I know this film is supposed to target her fans especially, and if you're one of them, then you've come to the right place. I personally watched it for Kevin Nealon, who was great. The direction was also a tad bit sloppy in the details department. The script is not all that great as far as depth and meaty dialogue goes, but it provides a few unexpected laughs. It actually starts having some pretty good moments about half way into the 2nd act. My biggest complaint from the last 2/3 of the movie comes from the characters, such as the cops or the lady at the impound lot, who are conveniently placed in these types of movies just to move along the plot. I absolutely hate it when comedies have characters that are unrealistically stubborn in order to create a roadblock to prevent the protagonist from achieving his or her ultimate goal. 

It's not a crazy outrageous comedy like The Hangover or anything like that. It wants to be raunchier, but seems to hold back at times--which works, if it didn't see like it wanted to be raunchier. It's almost exclusively rated R for language. However, once you get past the setup it becomes a pretty entertaining movie. It's not a good film by any means, but definitely enjoyable for the viewers who aren't as picky. I'd personally watch it again.

Twizard Rating: 67