(Why?… WHY!?!?!?)
CAST: Topher Grace, Anna Faris, Dan Fogler, Teresa Palmer, Chris Pratt, Michael Biehn, Demetri Martin.
DIRECTOR: Michael Dowse.
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and blatant snubbing of my favorite song of all time - straight ahead…
Okay, folks… you know how some movies will have awesome trailers - but when you actually go see them, the experience is, at best, severely underwhelming, and, at worst, so awful it’s enough to make you hire that relentless, long-haired ghost-chick from THE RING to terrorize the director, the screenwriter, the producers, the craft-services coordinators, the fluffers (if applicable), and their families?
Well, an experience worse than that is - oh, I don’t know - looking forward to a movie titled after your favorite song of all time, feeling your anticipation build in the lead-up to the film’s release, relishing the trailers that blare your song over and over again, only to finally watch the movie on opening weekend - only to discover your song is not played even once during the movie.
Yes, folks… I’m talking about our next review, the 80’s-themed party flick TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT. Most of you folks out there probably now by now that “Take Me Home Tonight” by Eddie Money is my favorite song. It was a sheer nirvana to listen to the song as it is played over and over during the trailers for the film. Naturally, I couldn’t wait to see the film - if for no other reason that it would act as a showcase for my favorite song.
So, on Saturday, a friend and I went to a matinee showing of TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT. Roughly about two hours later, we shuffled like zombies out of the theater - the last ones out of there. The reason? Because we waited until the very last of the end credits to stop rolling. The reason? Because… my song - the song that the movie was named after and was play in all the trailers - was not played ONCE in the goddamned movie. I have to tell you, between the two of us, we probably blew about two dozen synapses in our brains over this development. And at the rate that I’ve been losing synapses, if I blow anymore I may end up randomly and uncontrollably licking strangers on the street.
Anyhow, the movie’s set in 1988 and revolves around floundering M.I.T. graduate Matt Franklin (Topher Grace) and the summer after commencement. While everyone else is lining up jobs at Sotheby’s, Goldman and Sachs, and some other chi-chi establishment, our dear Matt is holding down the fort at… Suncoast Video. Personally, I think Matt’s got the best job in the house, surrounded by all that music and those movies. The movie, however, chooses to classify this as a liability. Whatever. I guess that’s why I’ll never be CEO of anything except my cat. Oh, who am I kidding. He’s the CEO of me. I have the scars to prove it.
Basically, Matt’s world is turned upside down when he runs into high school crush Tori Frederking (Teresa Palmer) when she cruises into Suncoast looking for exercise videos or something. Worried Tori will ignore him if she finds out he works there, Matt does the noble thing and… lies through his fucking teeth. He tells her actually works at Goldman Sachs. I don’t have to tell you that this basically is the equivalent of slipping an X-tacy tablet into someone’s drink at a party: she’s basically putty in his hands - and invites him to what can only be aptly desribed as a “Yuppie Scumbag” party that night.
How will the night turn out? Will Matt finally confess to Tori that he’s been crazy about her all these years? Or will he chicken out? What happens when Matt’s crazy best pal Barry (Dan Fogler) steals a Mercedes from the lot he used to work at to help Matt’s charade? Will Matt’s cop father (Michael Biehn) find out? And if so, will he ground Matt? Or just pistol whip him a little? Is a chick who looks like a blond version of that TWILIGHT chick really worth all this trouble? And what the fuck is so wrong with working at Suncoat Video, anyway?
And the most burning question: Where. Is. My. Goddamn. SONG!?!?!?!?
BUT, SERIOUSLY: Let me state something in all seriousness up front: I’m not giving TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT an average rating to penalize it for not playing my beloved song. I may kid about it, and it is indeed disappointing, but I’d like to think I’m more of a pro than that. No, I’m giving TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT a mere passing rating of **½ because it truly is only average. Let’s just say that this movie’s plot isn’t exactly ground-breaking. Basically, it’s yet another entry in the “Aimless Graduate Pursues His/Her Unrequited Love Interest Over A Fateful Summer.” But only sporadically amusing and with a lot less energy that you would have expected from an 80’s-themed party flick.
This angle has been explored before in better films like CAN’T HARDLY WAIT, BREAKING AWAY, I LOVE YOU BETH COOPER, THE GRADUATE, AMERICAN GRAFFITI, SIXTEEN CANDLES, WEIRD SCIENCE, BACHELOR PARTY, and many others. I know that TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT was seeking to capture the spirit of those films, and it does from time to time. However, it never really gives us a flavor of its own, which is necessary, otherwise it feels like a retread. And it does.
The cast does its best with the material. Topher Grace is his usual winning combo of clean-cut good looks and self-deprecating wit. While Grace holds the movie together, he’s not really given much of an opportunity to do anything beyond that. Part of the reason could be because Matt Franklin, while a little quirky, is not all that different from the typical protagonist of this type of film. Whatever unconventional qualities we discern in Matt are due to Grace’s oddball appeal. I wish he’d been given more to work with.
Dan Fogler gets most of the funniest scenes as Matt’s nutty best friend Barry. As with Grace and Matt, you get the feeling that a lot of Barry’s manic charm and goofy energy is actually Fogler’s and he’s pouring it into the character. Bottom line: it’s a good thing this movie has such a skilled cast willing to roll up their sleeves, otherwise it might have actually sunk below the average line like THE ALLNIGHTER.
As the film’s leading ladies, Anna Faris and Teresa Palmer do solid jobs. Faris is actually given a fairly complex (for a party movie) character, having to juggle a marriage proposal and a possible acceptance to grad school. Palmer, on the other hand, is saddled with a “generic love interest” role and she does what she can with it. At some point, though, one can’t help but wonder what Matt finds so beguiling about her, beyond her beauty. While Tori is indeed a nice girl, we don’t really see more than that. Nice girls are a dime a dozen. Interesting nice girls are not. And that’s what Tori should’ve been. To be fair, she and Matt have a nice scene where they play the “Penis” game in the middle of her boss’s party - to the chagrin of guests nearby. Had there been more scenes like this, Tori might have come across as a truly memorable and interesting muse.
In the end, TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT might have actually benefited from playing its namesake song by Eddie Money. The song is such an upbeat, effervescent tune that it never fails to pump energy into me. And energy is exactly what this movie needed.
Since the song is noticeably absent in the movie itself, allow me to at least do it right on my side of the street…
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the one-of-a-kind Eddie Money and the coolest song ever…
