---

Date Night

***

Stars: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Mark Wahlberg, William Fichtner

Director: Shawn Levy

Rated: PG-13

Showing: Liberty Theatre

Runtime: 88 minutes

Comedy

Phil and Claire Foster are average middle class, suburban parents stuck in a rut.

Raising two kids while maintaining careers leaves no time for their relationship and their only respite from the daily grind is their dull weekly date night at a local steakhouse.

But then Phil decides to shake things up by whisking Claire off to Manhattan to eat at a hip restaurant, which, of course, is fully booked.

They take another couple's reservation and it leads to them being mistaken for a pair of low-rent crooks who have robbed a mobster.

Chaos ensues with the hapless couple forced to spend the rest of the night being chased across the city by bad guys.

Director Shawn Levy (Night At The Museum, Just Married) tries to team violent action with slapstick and relationship comedy but doesn't quite pull it off.

It is testament to Carell and Fey - stars of two of the wittiest sitcoms on TV, The Office and 30 Rock - that they make the film entertaining despite the clumsy genre blurring and derivate script.

They have little romantic chemistry but tons of the comic kind and their improvising results in a few genuinely funny one-liners.

Mark Wahlberg is also wonderfully self-deprecating as a permanently shirtless security expert, while Ray Liotta pops up in a fun cameo as - what else? - a mobster.

Watch if you liked: Blind Date, Mickey Blue Eyes.

[[In-content Ad]]

---