Walk of Shame

A woman in a yellow dress with a terrible hangover running around like a headless chicken with no phone, keys or money may sound like an entertaining ninety-five minutes to you, but please think twice before you commit.

Meghan (Elizabeth Banks), a promising reporter, comes very close to realising her dream as a news anchor when she is offered the job of a lifetime. But a one night stand leaving her stranded in an unknown neighbourhood without her phone, keys or any money could totally ruin her chances.

Director Steven Brill has a pretty solid (if quite short) list of comedies in his filmography including Without a Paddle and Little Nicky so one could be forgiven for expecting another decent comedy flick in Walk of Shame. Granted the film does have its funny moments and its clear that Brill has a good knack for writing funny scripts, however Walk of Shame barely comes anywhere close to his other directorial efforts. The story is very simple, so simple in fact that Meghan’s idiotic antics and complete negligence of basic common sense is incredibly frustrating. Although comedy thrives on situations that are totally unlikely and unrealistic, there has to be some sense of ‘yeah, that could totally happen’. In the case of Walk of Shame however, Meghan’s ditziness is just annoying.

Credit where it’s due, the choice of a bright yellow dress (which stays immaculately clean throughout the film despite all of Meghan’s crazy antics, including being shot at in a crack den) is visually very striking. For some reason that streak of bright yellow makes some of the shots and scenes look beautiful, although sadly this is predominantly a very clever guise for a mediocre film.

Meghan is a relatively good protagonist, and Elizabeth Banks does a fine job portraying her. She plays the typical career woman who’s still a little bit dippy and ‘blonde’ really well and a lot of the time she is quite funny. However Meghan’s inability to use her common sense, and the complete unlikeliness of all of the situations she finds herself in do verge on the irritating side. When she wakes up late after her one night stand, not knowing where she is, the fact she doesn’t just wake the guy she’s with and ask him for help is the start of many frustrating moves that land Meghan in all sorts of trouble that could only ever happen in movie land.

 

Walk of Shame is another loud, over the top and in your face comedy that bears similarities to the kinds of films Melissa McCarthy is getting typecast in lately. It’s one of those comedies that seems to think the louder the characters shout their lines, the funnier it’ll be. While some people like that (and if you’re one of them, then by all means enjoy Walk of Shame) others of us prefer our comedy to be a little more clever and subtle.

 

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