Forgetting Sarah Marshall Review

Did someone get me drunk or slip something into my bottled water and drag me into this low-brow flavor of the week, Judd Apatow produced film?

Did I lose a bet?

No.  I heard it was a very funny movie and once in a while, I will go see a movie simply to be entertained and laugh.   Usually when I decide to do this I am dissapointed. What was I thinking?  Hollywood is more interestedin product placement than making a decent movie.

I really had my doubts that Forgetting Sarah Marshall would really satisfy me, even temporarily but it was playing at a theater nearby, it was playing at a convenient time and I was in the mood for a funny movie.

Okay, I really wish more people would rent of buy themselves a copy of Albert Brooks' very funny, painfully funny, Modern Romance.  That's the one that really can't be beat when it comes to romantic comedies.

That said,  Forgetting Sarah Marshall was SURPRISE!!!! A very funny, sometimes very witty and clever, likable and entertaining comedy.  It reminded me of Modern Romance and 10 (with Dudley Moore and Bo Derek )

It follows the overly familiar formula of a typical dime a dozen modern romantic comedy.  The difference is. . . while it sticks to the formula and remains very predictable, it gives us very likeable, charismatic characters and there are several moments where these people react and do things like.. well like you or I might actually do!!!   These are nice people who don't suddenly do something utterly ridiculous and wildly outrageous just because it was time for the screenwriter and director to get a really big laugh - or at least try to get a really big laugh.    We do NOT have some totally freaky wacked out character doing wild and crazy or dumb and much dumber things as a supporting player.

Plus.. it's funny.  I laughed a lot.  A few belly laughs, many chuckles and I left with a smile on my face feeling good.

Judd Apatow-who wrote for Gary Shandling, did televisions Freaks and Geeks, hit the big time with 40 Year Old Virgin a couple years back and followed it up with the very successful Knocked Up.  Judd also produces movies that people he has known for yours have written, or want to direct-Superbad , Walk Hard the Dewey Cox Story, Drillbit Taylor (which I've not heard good things about)  and now Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

I'm not sure this is the best of the ones I mentioned, but I think I laughed pretty consistently and enjoyed this one at least as much as any recent comedy, whether Apatow had something to do with it or not.  It certainly is a far far better film than anything Adam Sandler or other Saturday Night alumni have thrown at us in recent years.

There is a reason this is rated ‘R'.   Like the earliest comedy filmmakers-Hal Roach and progressing through Marx Brothers, Monty Python, Mel Brooks and many others, one way to go for the comedy jugular is to ‘shock' people in some way.  Show something they have never quite seen before.  Go a little too far, do a little too much and you'll get people gasping and then laughing very hard out loud.

You probably have heard how this movie does that, but in case you have not, I will not spoil it (even though scanning some reviews in the local paper, I see most reviewers went ahead and wrote about it).

Let me just say... it is FUNNY.   It is an R rated moment... so do not take the little ones... but it is very, very funny.   It's also believable and not actually that outlandish or anything particularly gross. 

Now I'll fill in some details.. but if your planning to see the movie... well you can skip the next few paragraphs of this review and come back later to read it. 

Jason Segel (of Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared and How I Met Your Mother fame) is writer and star of this outing.  He resembles Judge Reinhold.

He stars as Peter Bretter a musician who does the music scoring for a popular CSI type of show called  Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime  that stars a Baldwin and the beautiful Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell).   The job pays the bills, but what he really wants to do is work on his rock opera Dracula: The Musical  -- a puppet fantasy. 

Suddenly without warning,  Sarah breaks up with him.   Then it turns out, Sarah has been cheating on him with a very famous and popular British Rock-N-Roll star Aldus Snow (played by Russell Brand).    Peter takes the break-up really hard and helping him stay barely in control is his brother-in-law  Bill Hader.  

Eventually the best course of action for the man with a broken heart is a trip to Hawaii.

Of course guess who is staying at the same resort as the one Peter is checking into ? Yep.. Sarah and Aldus.  

We also have some very entertaining supporting players to keep things moving.

Mila Kunis makes a impression as a stunningly beautiful young lady who works for the hotel and takes a liking to Peter the sad-sack.   30 Rock's  Jack McBrayer is hilarious as a newlywed Mormon who is just learning about sex and finds it very complicated and nasty.    Then you'll find Apatow film regulars Jonah Hill  and Paul Rudd who have small but very funny roles.  Rudd doesn't quite have a ‘big' scene (as in Knocked Up), but he's still a real gem and a welcome addition to just about any movie he shows up in.

Russell Brand as the Brit rock star makes a strong impression playing a fully developed character that might wind up catapulting him to bigger and better things like  Borat did for Baron Sascha Cohen.  (he'll next be seen opposite Adam Sandler in Bedtime Stories).

Anyway what works best here is how these very talented actors pick and choose their moments in an ensemble like manner.  No one tries too hard or comes off too unrealistically in-human.  Instead, the movie is ultimately about forgiveness and the realization that Nice Guys don't always finish last.

There's an awwww factor, but it isn't sickeningly sweet.  It's witty, and funny.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is NOT a great movie, but it is much better than you would expect it to be, and it is very very funny.

3 and a half stars  rounded up for making me laugh so many times.  Thanks I needed that.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall  2008  Directed by Nicholas Stoller