{"id":1589,"date":"2011-07-01T08:15:42","date_gmt":"2011-07-01T15:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=1589"},"modified":"2011-07-01T08:15:42","modified_gmt":"2011-07-01T15:15:42","slug":"review-larry-crowne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=1589","title":{"rendered":"Review: LARRY CROWNE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>The problem economy is no laughing matter. But sometimes finding good-natured light laughs in the pain we all are experiencing breaks the tension. And \u201cLarry Crowne\u201d fits that bill pretty well.<\/p>\n

Larry Crowne spent almost 20 years in the Navy before entering the private work force. But when he\u2019s laid off from his beloved job at the local UMart (think any big box store), he\u2019s a bit lost. A recent divorce left him in tough economic shape and his home might be foreclosed on. When he tells his enterprising neighbor, Lamar (Cedric the Entertainer) about his plight, Lamar tells Larry to get some college so that he is \u201cfire-proof.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, Larry takes off for the local community college. Along the way, he runs into the dean of students (played by character actor Holmes Osborne) who encourages him to take a speech class. \u201cYou\u2019ll really like the teacher,\u201d the dean says with a wink. And \u201clike\u201d is right, the teacher is played by \u201cPretty Woman\u201d Julia Roberts. <\/p>\n

Signs of the times are everywhere in \u201cCrowne.\u201d Larry buys a small scooter to replace his SUV and save gas. This leads him to join a college scooter gang headed by Dell Gordo (Wilmer Valderrama) and get style tips from the flirtatious Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). In time, Larry will be remade. He\u2019ll discover that he might have a knack for education and that starting over even at his age and in this economy is possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cLarry Crowne\u201d is pretty light weight stuff. It has good clean fun and isn\u2019t controversial. The set up is contrived\u2014Larry is a great UMart employee, but is let go because he hasn\u2019t gone to college. Viewers will collectively roll their eyes when the basis for Larry\u2019s firing is explained to him. And the supporting cast in that scene wriggles a few cheap laughs out of it, which unfortunately undermines the emotional connection that could have been made. But the story recovers mainly because Hanks is so amiable and surrounded by a number of likable performers. The cast includes George Takei as a hilarious econ professor and a slim, hip looking Bryan Cranston as Robert\u2019s character\u2019s looser husband.<\/p>\n

Despite story flaws that compress time and make leaps in logic, the film hangs together well providing Hanks and Roberts with a good vehicle that keeps their arguably fading stars burning. Hanks, directing here for the first time in a feature since his excellent \u201cThat Thing You Do\u201d in 1994, makes a good decision to place himself in the lead. The script is co-written by \u201cMy Big Fat Greek Wedding\u2019s\u201d Nia Vardalos and has a real Vardalos vibe. But without A-List casting, \u201cLarry Crowne\u201d would likely be a direct to DVD offering.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re going to make jokes about the economy, \u201cLarry Crowne\u201d is probably the right way to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonathan thinks it’s light-weight fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1593,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions\/1593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}