How to Lose Friends and Alienate People - C

On DVD

London tabloid writer Sidney Young (Simon Pegg) is hired to work at a New York magazine after catching the eye of a highly successful editor (Jeff Bridges). Young wants to become ridiculously famous, but doesn’t want to play by the rules, keeping his dated, comfortable wardrobe and offensive tell-it-like-it-is behavior. He meets actress Sophie Maes (Megan Fox) – the next big thing – as well as a fellow writer (Kirsten Dunst) who he has much more in common with than he wants to admit . . .

Pegg does as well as anyone could in a role that asks him to chase a pig around, kill a Chihuahua, and share 2 scenes with a transsexual (who goes full frontal). Bridges isn’t asked to do much but is a welcome presence. Gillian Anderson is excellent as a publicist and Danny Huston is appropriately slimy as Pegg’s nemesis. There are some great scenes (Megan Fox walking through a pool, Megan Fox walking around in her underwear, Megan Fox getting out of a cab), but the tone is all over the place and the slapstick scenes seemed slapped on by the studio trying to appeal to a mass audience.

The scenes involving Pegg and his father are the best in the film, but the use of La Dolce Vita seems disjointed and cheap. This is as scattered and unfocused as it gets. Robert B. Weide has directed many episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm but this is his first feature. There’s some great comic timing, especially by Pegg, but there’s little going on that is visually interesting, save for Ms. Fox. C