Rating: NNNN
Run, Fat Boy, Run (Alliance, 2007) D: David Schwimmer, w/ Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton. Rating: NNNN DVD package: NNN
Near the beginning, Simon Pegg (Shaun Of The Dead) gets hit in the head with a shoe and takes a fall. It’s a head-and-shoulders close-up. Pegg’s out of the frame in a split second, but he takes the trouble to put a wobbly-kneed curve into his fall. That’s what sells the joke, and it’s one of the reasons I’m thinking Pegg could be the next great screen comedian, up there with Peter Sellers. In both physical comedy and verbal, Pegg has the knack for grace disguised as clumsiness.
He’s also got the great comic’s single-minded intensity that will help sell any gag. Here, it does much for the wafer-thin idea that a fat guy can run a marathon through downtown London to win back the woman he loves (Thandie Newton). It’s also solely responsible for the success of the extended suffering-of-the-little-guy third act.
Newton, Hank Azaria as her new love and Dylan Moran and Harish Patel as Pegg’s buddies all contribute to the comic tone.
Director David Schwimmer, Pegg and Newton deliver an average commentary about the shoot. It’s nothing brilliant, but they’re having fun.
EXTRAS Schwimmer, Pegg and Newton commentary, deleted scenes, outtakes. Widescreen. English, French audio and subtitles.
