Bloggy at the Movies: Take Me Home Tonight

Just got home from a sneak-preview of Take Me Home Tonight at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar. The film is set in the late 80's and stars Topher Grace, Anna Faris and Dan Fogler. I went in to the film expecting it to be absolutely wretched and was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't. In the grand tradition of films like, Can't Hardly Wait we follow the shy Grace as he pines for his High School crush years after high school. He has graduated from MIT but works at a Suncoast video in the mall because he doesn't want to fall in the career trap. His crush has graduated from Duke and landed a job at a successful financial firm. I don't want to give away the whole plot but I will tell you they meet up at a party where there are a bunch of their former High School classmates and romantic-comedy ensues.


Take Me Home Tonight - Official Trailer video via YouTube


Apparently Take Me Home Tonight was shot in 2007 but won't officially hit theaters until this coming weekend. The casual use of cocaine has been blamed for this hold-back, which seems both silly and logical to me. I feel like the cocaine sub-plot might be the only reason why the film was set in the 80's to begin with. I felt like the character-motives and plot devices had absolutely nothing to do with the 80's and that element should have been either more over-the-top or eliminated altogether. I was expecting an 80's characature along the lines of The Wedding Singer or Hot Tub Time Machine but the setting ended up being merely incidental.



All in all I would give the film a C+/B- rating. Anna Faris was grotesquely under-used and the 80's setting seemed like a gimick to sell soundtracks. Topher Grace is charming and like-able as always and I enjoyed Dan Fogler as his friend whose life is going to shit. I wouldn't recommend seeing Take Me Home Tonight theatrically but it's certainly worth a trip to the Redbox and methinks you'll be able to make that trip by May. By the way, seeing Chris Pratt, of Parks & Recreation fame, ugly cry MIGHT have been the highlight of the movie for me.