Directed by: Shawn Levy
Starring: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, James Franco, Taraji P. Henson, Mila Kunis, Mark Ruffalo, Jimmi Simpson, Mark Wahlberg, Kristen Wiig
Rating: PG-13

Steve Carell and Tina Fey star in Date Night. (Courtesy photo)

In the Thursday night hour their TV shows share on NBC, Tina Fey and Steve Carell purvey a similar brand of intelligent, benign, grown-up comedy. In the movie Date Night, they do their absolute best to compensate for the lack of it. They come out okay, turning a movie that is in most ways a disaster into something perfectly watchable and occasionally very funny. That’s good, but not good for the dream pairing of 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon and The Office’s Michael Scott.

Phil and Claire Foster are stuck in a rut. Their lives are consumed by work and kids, and their regular date night has become as stale as everything else in their marriage. When they learn that their best friends (Mark Ruffalo and Kristen Wiig as the first of many head-scratching cameos) are splitting up, they attempt to do something different: dinner in Manhattan. They even try to eat at the most exclusive new restaurant. When there are no tables available, they pretend to be another couple. It turns out that other couple has stolen an incriminating flash drive from a local hood, and now a pair of goons (Common, Jimmi Simpson) thinks Phil and Claire have it. Much chasing and gunfire ensues. There’s a sympathetic, typically ignorant police detective (Taraji P. Henson) in pursuit, and a former client of Claire’s with a background in black ops (Mark Wahlberg). As over-the-top as Phil and Claire’s night becomes, it isn’t nearly inventive enough. Writer Josh Klausner (Shrek 3 and 4) inserts stupidity where he should be striving for absurdity. Multiple references to Martin Scorsese movies only remind us that his After Hours is still the standard bearer for this type of story.

When Shawn Levy directed Night at the Museum into a massive box office hit, I was pleasantly surprised. His work wasn’t groundbreaking, but I did find him to be very capable in handling a large cast in only a few locations. In Date Night Levy has all of Manhattan and a smaller cast, but it’s a big step back to his Pink Panther/Cheaper By the Dozen days, with technical work that’s barely above TV quality. Levy stages a fairly big car chase that may have looked good in the storyboard stage, but doesn’t work for a minute. He has his villains make sure to shoot at the heroes only from safe distances, and a wrap-up that talks like it completes Phil and Claire’s emotional journey, but doesn’t.

Still Carell and Fey pull it off. Has anyone had a better run than Tina Fey over the past five years? Her 30 Rock is the TV comedy by which all others are measured; her Sarah Palin imitation actually affects public opinion; and Carole Burnett recently called her the latest great female TV icon. Fey is always self-effacing yet never afraid to say what is on her mind. Carell is a force of comic sweetness. He can play arrogant buffoons with the best of them, but no one is better at lovable squares like Phil. I’m convinced that the best lines you hear in any Steve Carell comedy are his own contributions. Wahlberg is hilarious, laid back in his extended cameo. James Franco and Mila Kunis are fun as the couple Phil and Claire have been mistaken for. No one else can get past the creative roadblock put up by Levy and Klausner—not even the wonderful Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button).

In many ways, Date Night is like an updated Bob Hope-style comedy. Such movies were usually mistaken identity comedies that allowed Bob to do a few of his old vaudeville routines, maybe sign a song, and present his take on movie hero behavior. The very unusual thing about pairing Fey and Carell is that they’re both Bob Hope here. Both are very happy to make themselves look like fools, present their take on movie hero behavior, and thanks to some moronic plot contrivances, give us their versions of vaudeville routines. If only Levy and Klausner didn’t aim for so much raunchy stuff. There are also a handful of lines that suggest a fairly insightful comedy about parents examining their marriage. That movie is the one I really want to see Carell and Fey in.

Alex Manugian lives in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He grew up in Groton and has reviewed movies for Harvard readers for many years.