Run, Fatboy, Run!

What happened Simon Pegg? Pegg’s Hot Fuzz and Shaun Of The Dead were supremely entertaining comedy outings and showcased the rise of one of the big screen’s better new comedic talents. Following the promise of more laughs from those flicks comes Pegg’s new vehicle, Run, Fatboy, Run, that has all the intensity of an average television sitcom. In this new feature, Pegg plays Dennis, a man who panics and leaves his pregnant fiancee Libby (Thandie Newton) at the altar. Years later Dennis is working a dead end job as a security guard and comes to realise he has screwed up and needs to win back Libby and their child. Libby is seeing a new man, Whit (Hanz Azaria), who is a marathon runner. So Dennis decides he has to beat Whit in the sport as part of winning back his lost love. The movie is pleasant enough, even if it isn’t really that funny in some parts, but it just seems to be content at plodding along to the next plot twist than really giving viewers any sense of real connection to the story. Unlike the insanity unleashed with Hot Fuzz and Shaun Of The Dead, Run, Fatboy, Run feels incredibly subdued. Perhaps this is supposed to be Pegg’s big break into women-targeted romantic comedies after his run in obviously guy-skewed comedies. A lot of the humour and gags here just come across as really cliched, which makes the movie pretty bland and predictable. By the end of the movie, when Dennis is in the heat of the marathon, viewers are supposed to feel like they are rooting for the underdog and anxious to see victory. But the portrayal of Dennis and the movie’s weak delivery ends up making the ending grating instead of exhilarating.

Cast Thandie Newton, Simon Pegg, Harish Patel Director David Schwimmer Runtime 95 Minutes Opens 26 June

Text Adlin Rosli