Last night we watched Man Up and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a Simon Pegg vehicle, but at the same time it was a veritable “who’s who” of modern UK comic actors. There was Ken Stott, Harriet Walter, Sharon Horgan (off of “Catastrophe”), Rory Kinnear (I love him in “Count Arthur Strong”) as well as the Peggster himself. Lake Bell was a strange choice of lead female, I thought at first, but I really warmed to her and would like to see her other work.
The characters played by Pegg and Bell became more & more likeable as the film wore on, and it was obvious that a happy ending was on the cards, but about 15 minutes before the end it really jumped the shark by deluging the story and the audience in a vat of cheese. I was speaking to a friend at work today and he reminded me of “Run, Fatboy, Run”, and I would say that the volume of cheese at the end of the film was more or less equivalent to that.
One thing that did surprise me was that the film was made in 2015. If you had asked me, I would have said that Pegg would have been too busy to make this sort of film. I would have thought he would be glamming it up in Hollywood making Star Trek films – which are brilliant, by the way. Maybe he just has a soft spot for this type of UK comedy film? Although during the opening titles I did see that the film was produced by StudioCanal, who I always think are a French company.
If you like Simon Pegg and the type of film he makes, you’ll probably like this, but watch out for the cheese at the end, that would be my only caveat. Pegg is Pegg, a perfectly likeable fellow (much like Tim off of “The Office”, or Martin Freeman as he is also known), but Lake Bell makes the film, in my opinion. She and Sharon Horgan make believable sisters, strangely, and the family interplay between Ken Stott and Harriet Walter is a delight. There is a lot to enjoy in this film, so get to it.
TTFN.
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