Long Shot

Disappointingly erratic, Long Shot follows struggling journalist Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen) as he’s hired to write speeches for a Secretary of State (Charlize Theron’s Charlotte Field) in the midst of a Presidential run – with the narrative detailing the romance that eventually ensues between the two incredibly disparate characters. There’s little doubt that Long Shot fares best in its briskly-paced and thoroughly engaging opening half hour, as filmmaker Jonathan Levine does an effective job of establishing the movie’s comedic landscape and two central characters – with, in terms of the latter, Rogen and Theron stepping into the shoes of their respective protagonists with a charismatic ease that proves difficult to resist. It’s disappointing to note, then, that the picture’s flabby midsection slowly-but-surely drains one’s interest and enthusiasm for the material, as screenwriters Dan Sterling and Elizabeth Hannah suffuse the proceedings with a whole host of extraneous elements and subplots that inflate the running time to a ludicrous 125 minute running time – which subsequently diminishes the effectiveness and impact of the movie’s romcom-focused third act (and this issue is certainly compounded by the almost total lack of romantic chemistry between Rogen and Theron). The end result is a far-from-streamlined endeavor that could (and should) have topped out at about an hour and a half, with the movie’s failure especially disappointing given the massive potential afforded by the cast and the premise.

** out of ****