Trainwreck

I have to start this post off with an apology. I've been swamped with my real person job and unable to post any new material on here. I'm hoping that changes but I make no promises because this has been a busy year for sure and its only May. Your patience is greatly appreciated and I'm hoping I'll be able to knock out some reviews that have been in the pipeline for a while now.

I won’t say Amy Schumer came out of nowhere, but in many ways she did. I don’t really remember when she started being popular but suddenly she had her own TV show on Comedy Central and I kept on watching her stand up. So it wasn’t surprising that she was gonna stare in her own romantic comedy.

Trainwreck stars Schumer as Amy, a woman who doesn’t really believe in monogamy and shows it by sleeping with a lot of men, drinking a lot, and smoking a lot of pot. She is in essence the “trainwreck” in this movie, but the reality is she is very comfortable with her lifestyle. She has a sister (played by Brie Larson) who is married, raising her husband’s kid from his previous marriage, and is pregnant. She is the absolute opposite of Amy. Another aspect of Amy’s life is her job where she works for a magazine focused towards men. That was one joke I wasn’t totally clear on because it was this magazine with these incredibly offensive titles all about men’s interests and its all run by Tilda Swinton... which I guess is kind of funny. Overall, Amy is living her life the way she wants to live it, nobody is going to tell her otherwise.

While on an assignment for her magazine, Amy meets Sports Doctor Aaron Connors.  (played by Bill Hader). The two hit it off pretty quickly and go on a date. The date ends with her in Connor’s bed and usually that is how the date would end for Amy, but things go differently with Connors and the two start to date, breaking every convention that Amy has set up for herself as not being monogamous.

The rest of the movie really plays out like a normal romantic comedy. If you’ve watched a romantic comedy before, you can probably predict the path this movie takes and while Amy Schumer’s humor brings a different tone to your typical romantic comedy and the movie is actually a lot sadder than usual rom coms, it plays out exactly how you think it will. 

That doesn’t make the movie bad, just don’t buy it if people say Amy Schumer is breaking trends and doing something totally different. She’s really not. Its good, and it’s a rated R Romantic Comedy, but that has been done before.

The praise that this movie receives is there because the characters are fun and Schumer gives a good performance that is different than what her stand up has been. There are actually a lot of serious moments in this movie than I expected and Schumer does a good job with those moments. I think I’d have to see her in more before I say that she’s a great actress, but I do have to say that I really enjoyed her in this movie, both in the serious moments and the funny moments.

Bill Hader hit comedy gold weekend after weekend in SNL and I’m glad that he has a pretty decent career after he left SNL. The reason he is able to is because he’s able to bring out the honest but still funny performances like the one he gives in Trainwreck. Bill Hader looks and kind of comes off as the kind of guy that would usually be the goofy friend or the annoying comic relief, but the cool part is that he’s able to be the romantic male lead and he does a really good job while doing it. He had me laughing, but he also had me feeling.

But probably one of the best comedic parts of this movie was Lebron James. Why was Lebron James in this movie? I don’t know. But he’s hilarious! Even though he’s able to pull off the romantic male lead in a movie, Bill Hader is still a little bit of a weird looking guy and can still be funny in the goofy way, so they needed someone to counter him with a lot of deadpan moments and Lebron James nails them. He plays himself, as a friend of Aaron Connors and you can tell, he had fun with it, Hader had fun with it, everyone had fun with it. James should not consider a career in acting, but for what it was, it was a lot of fun and he brought a lot of the comedy to the movie.

Those two were the main actors and the story focused on them the most but there were a couple other characters like Brie Larsen playing Amy’s sister, Kim, playing her sick father, and the other funny cameos, from Matthew Broderick, to John Cena, really make a solid comedy and a decent movie in general.

I say decent because once again, it’s a pretty conventional romantic comedy. Its pretty by the book despite having rated R comedy and it follows a lot of conventions. Conventions that just wouldn’t happen in real life and therefore takes away from the characters which have been built up as comedic but relatable.

Also Trainwreck is a lot like the movie Ted. Just like Seth MacFarlene, it has a bit of a feel to the comedy that falls in line with Schumer’s style. It’s a style that not everyone enjoys and if you don’t enjoy that style, you might not enjoy this movie that much. Now I would say that Schumer’s style is a little less in your face than MacFarlene’s, but its still there and its still noticeable. I enjoyed the comedy myself, however since Schumer doesn’t always land with me in her comedy, the jokes in this movie didn’t always land with me either.

I think Trainwreck is worth checking out. I enjoyed it and I think if you like Amy Schumer or rated R romantic comedies, it’s the right choice for you.

But what did you think of Trainwreck? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Speaking of R-Rated comedies, there's a movie coming out that I'm really looking forward to. Its called Popstar and its made by the Lonely Island. I've always been a fan of their work and if they're making a movie essentially making fun of Justin Bieber, I'm in. Enjoy!