Dennis Doyle (Simon Pegg), the oddball hero of the sweet-and sour-romantic comedy, RUN FATBOY RUN is a man who has lived for five years with the fallout of one bad, impulsive decision. That would be running out, literally, on his fiancée, Libby (Thandie Newton). His >pregnant< fiancée, Libby, and doing it as the guests were assembled for the wedding. Five years on, he’s a great if immature dad, connecting with son Jake on the latter’s level rather too well. Libby tolerates him in a civil fashion while getting on with her life running a successful bakery, Libby’s Nice Buns. Dennis isn’t so much getting on with his own life as he is muddling along, living in a one-room basement apartment, working security at an upscale London lingerie shop, and wondering aloud to best pal and Libby’s cousin, Gordon (Dylan Moran), why she’s still holding a grudge after all this time. Women, opines Gordon, tend to remember things like a wedding day that wasn’t.
All that is about to change, though, as Libby starts getting on with her personal life as well in the person of Whit (Hank Azaria), a hedge-fund manager from America who seems too good to be true. He’s smitten with Libby, great with Jake, and just a little too nice to Dennis, even after Dennis just been arrested, Jake in tow. Sensing that a crossroads has been reached, Dennis decides to prove to Libby that he is a changed man, one who can follow through, and he does it, in another impulsive, probably bad decision, by challenging Whit on his own turf, vowing to run with the seasoned athlete in the London Marathon. Never mind that Dennis is paunchy, out of shape, smokes, and has never actually run a marathon, he has, however, watched one on television.
Fortunately for him, Gordon, a bad gambler at best, has placed a bet on Dennis’ finishing the marathon, a bet that, if lost, will result in grave consequences for Gordon, probably in the literal sense. With that sort of incentive, along with that of Dennis’ sympathetic, sentimental, and spatula-wielding landlord, Mr. Goshdashtidar (Buddha-esque Harish Patel), and an ultimatum from Mr. G’s venal daughter, there is nowhere to go but forward.
The script by Michael Ian Black and Pegg shows a clever restraint, both with the humor and the pathos that are mixed admirably throughout. Pegg is brilliant, pratfalling his way through heartbreak and indignity. There is none of the edgy absurdity of SHAUN OF THE DEAD or HOT FUZZ, but instead the absurdity of a man working through the emotions of love and fear that have reached an equilibrium in him that results in absolute inertia. And that of a man who takes his first tentative run in swimming trunks that barely allow the film to retain its PG-13 rating. His heroism arises not from training in ways questionable and other, or running the race itself, but rather from overcoming his overweening sense of complete worthlessness. And this is why even though he is a cad, and a clueless one, we can’t help but root for him.
Newton is fine as the woman left behind. The part calls for little more than looking very good (she does), being feisty without being abrasive (she is), while having a full heart and a level head (she succeeds). The biggest stumble in the film is Whit, who is, of course, too good to be true, but whose flaws are played up the by the script a little too broadly and a little too early. Azaria can’t be faulted, though, playing the surface friendliness of his dialogue in piquant juxtaposition with body language that makes the dominance tussles of the wild dingo look like tea with the Queen. The locker room scene in which talcum powder becomes an act of aggression is played to the hilt by both Azaria and Pegg, both assuming an air of nonchalance that is palpably absent, the former cool, the latter an unreasonable simulacrum of same. Moran is a paragon of dissolute nihilism, barely able to rouse himself from a monumental ennui in order to save his skin, even while participating in a blister-popping sequence will become the stuff of nightmares and cinema montages for its deft blend of horror and bellylaughs played with magnificent sangfroid by him and Pegg.
RUN FATBOY RUN works as a comedy, but one that is as emotionally invigorating as a 10K run is physically. True to its characters while never losing its sense of fun, it warms the cockles of the heart while giving the funny bone a spirited workout.
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