Amy Schumer is America’s raunchy darling these days, the new Sarah Silverman if you will, and the comedian is making her feature film screenwriting debut along with her first film leading debut with the raunchy romantic comedy, Trainwreck, directed by Judd Apatow.
As you may have been able to deduce from the title, the film is about a train wreck of a person named Amy, a woman who doesn’t believe in monogamy after her father taught her about life as a child. She goes around sleeping with whoever, rarely letting it go past one night while never staying over or allowing others to spend the night. Some might say she has commitment issues. She works at a men’s magazine as a writer, hoping to be promoted to an editor(?) when she’s assigned to do a piece on a sports surgeon named Aaron (Bill Hader), a nice guy who ends up taking a liking to her. Aaron hasn’t had much luck in the relationship zone and, with the advice of his good friend Lebron James, he goes after Amy and the two start to feel each other out, wondering if something horrible will result from any potential relationship.
To the chagrin of audience goers, prepare yourself for yet another 2+ hour long comedy from Judd Apatow, a director who has clearly given up on making tight comedies for the sake of, well, adding more emotional drama in a comedy than is necessary? Regardless, Apatow, while channeling Schumer’s script, delivers us a pretty entertaining and slightly over-the-top comedy that’s very much in the vein of his past films This is 40 and Knocked Up. It follows the same formula of raunchy humor, followed by kinder humor, then throw in some touching moments, a conflict, and then a comical, yet typical, Hollywood ending to wrap things up.
While entertaining and full of both solid laughs and some failed, forced jokes, Trainwreck gives two strong comedians a chance to shine on the big screen in leading roles, something which I really appreciate. Hader and Schumer are typically supporting characters or are starring in smaller films and it’s really nice to see these two making a movie together, seamlessly riffing off each other. You could tell they got along really well because of how quick some of their banter was. I’m actually really looking forward to seeing the blu-ray extras and hear some of the jokes that didn’t make the final cut.
There was a lot to like in Trainwreck, as well as a few things to hate, but one of the big standouts was John Cena’s character, Steven, I’m pretty sure he stole the show whenever he was on screen. The man, like Dwayne Johnson, is an entertainer and when you give him an outlandish muscle head role such as the one he has in this film, you’re going to get comedic gold. There’s a hilarious sex scene involving him and Amy that will make the guys laugh while melting the hearts of women everywhere, you’ll see why.
Trainwreck proves that female led raunchy comedies can succeed in a world where most raunch fests are male dominated. While a little too long and predictable, Amy Schumer and co have delivered a movie that’ll entertain the R-rated masses that have come to love films from the likes of Apatow and Todd Phillips. I’m not the biggest fan of Schumer but I had fun with this film even with the long duration (which always kills it for me with comedies) and some jokes that missed their mark. Thankfully, this is a romantic comedy that both men and women will like equally so, fear not, this is one date movie that you shouldn’t dread, so long as you like raunchy things.
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