Hilariously profane and unabashedly romantic, LONG SHOT is a clever comedy with a landslide of laugh out loud moments.
Seth Rogen starts out at his unkempt best as liberal expose writer Fred Flarsky, confronting white supremacist groups and his bosses with equal contempt and volume.
When a giant conglomeration buys out his paper, he finds himself out of work and leaning on his massively successful best friend Lance ( a terrific O'Shea Jackson Jr) for a pep talk.
When their all day party leads to a chance meeting with the Secretary of State Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron), the two realize that Charlotte used to babysit Fred when he was 13.
The flashback to an especially embarrassing moment during one babysitting adventure is hilarious, but clever as it also reveals a lot about Charlotte that will come into play as our story evolves.
Charlotte has plans for the White House and President Chambers (hilarious Bob Odenkirk) makes those plans more urgent when he decides not to run for reelection.
Charlotte's "humor" score with the public is low, so she decides to add Fred to her team to bring some much needed laughter to her speeches and her team.
June Diane Raphael (The Disaster Artist) is Charlotte's cut throat right hand advisor and Ravi Patel has some of the best throwaway lines as team strategist Tom.
Fred is whisked off on a world tour with Charlotte to kickoff her major legislation and the laughs abound.
Rogen is at his best here, creating a caustic loud character that is so loudly opposed to everything that it takes true adjustment to accept something good in his life.
Theron is terrific, stunning and very funny, playing off Rogen perfectly as they laugh together and begin to feel something....more.
I can't count the number of times I laughed out loud. Fred's complete lack of social graces is the perfect foil for Theron's perfection.
Jackson (Straight Outta Compton) and Rogen's friendship feels real, as does the resistance to Fred from Charlotte's team. He's a politically incorrect, badly dressed time bomb of "wrong" dropped into their campaign.
Andy Serkis is absolutely buried in makeup as conservative network owner Parker Wembley and Alexander Skarsgard (True Blood) manages to look goofy as the Canadian Prime Minister with the hots for Charlotte.
More clever than I expected and just as funny as I'd hoped, it's loaded with adult humor and the most graphic moment since "There's Something About Mary".
Beneath all the laughs, its got a great heart and a nice message about stereotyping people politically that should be heard by everyone in our divided country. Too much judgement on both sides of the aisle and not enough common ground.
With a strong warning that it's not for the easily offended, LONG SHOT wins my vote with an A-.
"I look like Cap'n Crunch's Grinder date" might be the line of the year.....
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