Review: Run, Fatboy, Run

David Schwimmer’s featur-length directorial debut Run, Fatboy, Run is the sort of romantic comedy that’s often called “nice” and “sweet,” which are codewords for “unexceptional” and “useless.” Though it could have been helmed by any number of nondescript directors, it’s Ross Gellar himself who guides this tale from clichéd start to clichéd finish. Without an ounce of authentic U.K. spirit, the film recounts the London-set saga of Dennis (Simon Pegg), a loser who abandons pregnant Libby (Thandie Newton) at the altar and, five years later, attempts to win her back—and away from cocky American hedge-fund manager Whit (Hank Azaria)—by participating in a marathon for charity.

The big theme at play here is that Dennis needs to stop running away from responsibility, which is ironic given that that the filmmakers don’t turn their backs to the moldy formulas of their chosen genre. Run, Fatboy, Run so slavishly hews to a familiar rom-com template that it quickly makes itself irrelevant, its few idiosyncratic particulars unable to prevent everything from feeling like the same-old tripe but with a British accent. But just as exasperating as the film’s unoriginality is that it never puts much effort toward building up a humorous steam, nor manages—after Dennis’s cowardly initial behavior—to redeem its protagonist (or make him seem very likeable) to a point that we might be compelled to root for his redemption.

No one involved does particularly poor work, but neither do they offer anything more than bland competence in service of Pegg and Michael Ian Black’s paint-by-numbers script. Meanwhile, the film’s idea that repeating shots of a man’s naked ass is comedically inspired ultimately proves almost as baffling as the fact that Pegg, a man who couldn’t possibly be described as more than paunchy, is somehow supposed to be the titular fatboy.