The Out-of-Towners

Henry and Nancy Clark have been married for 24 years and it is starting to show. Henry has lost his job but has kept it secret and plans to get a new job in New York. Having had their last child move out of the house the day before, Nancy isn't sure what to do with her time and decides to join Henry on his trip to New York. However a fog-bound city sees them diverted to Boston and struggling to get to their destination. Actually getting into Manhattan is only the first challenge in an eventful 24 hours that could only happen in New York!

Nothing about this film suggested that it would be anything special; in fact the presence of Marc Lawrence as writer only promised the sort of safely comic humour that he produced with Two Weeks Notice, Miss Congeniality and similar projects. And from the very start it is obvious that Lawrence has produced his usual standard and that director Weisman has no aspirations to do more than churn out a rather derivative but amusing rom-com. So that is just what we get and if that is OK with you then you should be alright, although hardly impressed. The plot bumbles along from one unlikely scenario to the next; most of them are ho-hum but occasionally it tickled me. Most viewers (myself included) will find it all a bit obvious and weak but the undemanding will maybe find it amusing enough to serve as a distraction.

Part of the film working (albeit on this level) is the partnership of Martin and Hawn. Even with the rather obvious material to work with, they do work well together and produce some laughs where they may not have existed on the page. Martin is only ever a hair away from mugging but, although not a shade on his former glory, he fits the lazy tone well. Hawn is a bit less convincing but is still quite amusing; the only problem with her is that she has to carry the more emotionally complex character and she can't get that right and mainly just overplays it for easy laughs, robbing the film of the engaging realism that it needed to have if it really wanted to pull off the emotional ending (which of course it doesn't actually want to do!). Cleese is embarrassing and can do nothing with the poor material he is served with – it is pretty much below him and it shows.

Overall then a totally by-the-numbers, obvious little romantic comedy. It is fairly forced and contrived which was a problem but bits of it rose above the rest and generally it provided just enough to be distracting for those in an undemanding mood. However the majority of us will see something that lacks any real effort and it doesn't encourage me to do much into it when watching. The two leads brighten it up a little bit but it is hard not to see the glaring lack of originally and spark at pretty much every turn.