Los Angeles never looked that much like New York

Rating: 8/10 (22 August 2009)

A great comedy with some minor flaws evenly distributed over the entire length of the film. What fascinated me more than the characters and the action, however, was the locale. Is that really Los Angeles? I wondered every other minute. I have seen downtown L.A., but I have never seen it like that in a movie. All clichés of Southern California are avoided, even in the wedding scene that probably takes place in Santa Barbara (given the train ride and its direction). No beaches, no athletic bodies in sexy outfits, no suntans, hardly any palm trees. Even the final scene, though representing the quintessential cliché happy ending and featuring the only female of outstanding beauty, looks unfamiliar because of its setting in that vintage office building. There is something New-Yorkish about this movie. Some have likened it to Woody Allen, maybe for a reason, but Tom is not really a Woody Allen character--he makes no reference to the Nazis, for instance, and if he is Jewish, it does not matter.