Trainwreck (2015)

I like Amy Schumer, and it's like this part was simply written for her. It probably seems that way because she wrote it, and she wrote it so that she would star in it. She then roped in Judd Apatow into directing it for her, and she got quite a few big names to show up in it. So, it seems that she had a recipe for success that couldn't be derailed, even if the movie was named trainwreck.

Amy plays a character named Amy who is the embodiment of Amy's comedy. I suspect Amy isn't actually everything she claims to be on stage, but this character is a woman who gets drunk, gets high, has lots of one night stands, and is really pretty directionless in life. Ostensibly, she has a career as a writer for some trashy magazine where her hellish boss (Tilda Swinton) mistakes rapid decision making for leadership, but that's just the platform for the movie.

Amy gets assigned the task of writing about sports, as she hates sports. The person she is assigned to interview is an orthopedic surgeon  who works for the NBA (lots and lots of advertisements going on in this movie for the NBA) played by Bill Hader. Bill works with a lot of high profile players and he even supports the cheerleaders when they have issues. I'm pretty sure this isn't how doctors for real teams work, but that's his character, and he serves all the teams. It's pretty obvious very quickly that Bill is in the movie to be the romantic interest.

We are told that the reason Amy is this way is because her father, played by Colin Quinn, instilled in her and her sister a hatred of monogamy. Is Colin Quinn really old enough to be playing the part of the old man who gets sent to a nursing home? Well, not with the makeup they gave him. The really needed to try harder to make him look old. Instead, he looks like he could be old enough to be her father, but he doesn't look old enough to need assisted living (let alone a nursing home).

LeBron, you shouldn't be out-acting me!

The real surprise in this cast are the people who played themselves like Marv Albert, Chris Evert, Matthew Broderick, Tony Romo, and Amar'e Stoudemire. Hell, Marv is so playing himself that he actually just gives the play-by-play of a scene where some of the people try to get Bill to renew his relationship with Amy. By far, though, the best of the bunch of non-actors was LeBron James. He is himself in the movie, but he is supposed to be Bill's best friend, so he inserts himself into the relationship in a very personal way very frequently.

Acting was good
Dialogue was well thought out
Story was paint-by-numbers
Direction was good
Comedy was kind of good

Bottom Line: As a rom-com, it was better than average, that's for sure. As a comedy, it just needed to be funnier.

3.0/5