Unlike last week where I really liked Moneyball and really hated What’s Your Number?, this week’s top movie is just okay. You might even say I’m 50/50 on it, get it? Hey wait, don’t run from my reviewer puns!
What Works: Joseph Gordon Levitt (as a very young guy stricken with a rare form of cancer) shines. He delivers a sometimes funny, sometimes moody performance that elevates a decent, perfunctory script which is perhaps a little too pleased with itself for trying to do cancer in a funny way…
What Doesn’t Work:…and that’s maybe the movie’s biggest problem. You can tell co-star and co-writer Seth Rogen (who wrote the movie based on his best friend’s ordeals) thinks it’s really groundbreaking to cover cancer in a quasi-funny, dramedy way but it really isn’t. Most cancer movies have a lot of humor in them (as if they’re afraid to accurately portray the depressing nature of the disease to audiences too afraid of real-life) and this movie has a lot of drama in it, so I can’t say it’s really doing anything as different as it thinks it is.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Like Killer Elite, it’s hard to really change anything since it is based on a true story. I guess it would be nice if Rogen’s best friend character (will Rogen ever get a role as good as the excellent Observe and Report?) had had at least one scene where he’s not trying to be funny and just reacts to his friend’s cancer in a real way, but ultimately this movie is a decent, solid, wait-for-the-DVD and then rent it quickly film.