Knocked Up

By: The Dude

Director: Judd Apatow
Cast: Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
 
If there’s one thing that annoys the Dude more than just about anything outside a kick to the nuts, it’s those movies whereby some loveable fella gets the girl, then gets caught up in some obvious misunderstanding by which he upsets and loses the girl, only to have it all work out in the end. Usually they feature a stuttering Hugh Grant.

Anyhow, I hate those movies on any normal day. When I saw this here Knocked Up By a Drunk though, it musta been a full moon or something is what I’m now thinking, because I liked this one. See, this is a rarity in the love film genre, because it’s actually good and actually funny is what it is.

Perhaps that’s got more to do with the fact it was written by those funny fellas behind The 40 Year Old Virgin. They did a bang up job on that one, and they follow it up with this.

What you have is some fat drunken bloke who bats well and truly out of his league one night when he picks up that hot blonde chick from Grey’s Anatomy who is a TV presenter in this movie. Anyway, the story is that she gets promoted and goes out on a bender, ending up in the boudoir with our hero.

Ben (Seth Rogen) dutifully follows through minus protection, and Alison (Katherine Heigl) ends up with a gut full of arms and legs.

The rest of the film concerns itself with their developing relationship, her pregnancy, the birth etc. You know the drill.

It has to be said that there are enough laugh out loud moments to make this a cracker of a movie. Ben’s mate’s antics while he’s on the phone is one such example. Another would be the time when Leslie Mann’s neurotic character gives a bouncer a spray when he doesn’t let her into a niteclub.

What doesn’t work is the beat up of the new couple’s relationship. The pick up is way too easy for the fat, poor, slightly nerdy and woefully underdressed Ben. He goes into his first approach with Alison with no real charisma and nothing going for him, yet ends up with a disco pash within minutes, and an invite home soon after. There is no real reason behind this.

In the real world, without a demo of higher value from Ben or at least some comfort building with Alison, her anti-slut defenses would have kicked in and stopped her making the mistake of taking him home. The whole relationship outside the first night is so concocted it could only happen in Hollywood.

That said, if you suspend reality long enough to believe that a babe like Katherine Heigl would be remotely interested in a chump like Seth Rogen, you’ll discover a piss-funny movie worthy of a place in any DVD collection.

My warning for male viewers though is that the birth scene is quite graphic, Surprisingly graphic in fact.

Verbatim:
Ben: “It's doggie style. It's just the style. We don't have to go outside or anything.”

In a word: Side-splitting