'Bromantic' Hilarity

Rating: 9/10 (24 June 2012)

A feel- good, buoyant 'bromance', 'I Love You, Man' typifies the elements that can make a regular, orthodox comedy successful. First and foremost, it does make you laugh owing to great characters and it does add a slightly new spin on things. Sometimes, it does feel like the box office is flooded with comedies not too different to this, but it's the minority that realise characters are the key to giving the audience gratification. 'I Love You, Man' certainly belongs to that minority.
All the same, it follows a simple path which is far from frenetic and completely impromptu a la 'The Hangover' for instance. It's centered around a relatively boring guy and his very contrasting friend and these opposites attract with results that are amusing, good fun and fresh. These two men drive each other toward some juvenile behaviour, Jason Segel being the perpetrator, an adolescent in a grown man's body in many ways. But the humour itself isn't overly immature, neither is it excessively crude or imbecilic but 'bromantically' innocent. There was more focus on this facet than on the romantic aspect of the film, which took a back seat making this far more male friendly.
The free-spirited Sydney Fife as played by Jason Segel, certainly fascinates you. His name makes him sound awful important, but he never seems to work and is perpetually biding his time in his 'man cave' with quite expensive ornaments adorning the walls. At first glance, he occurs to be a jobless grunge but he's fun, pleasure seeking and supposedly, a smart investor, after all, it isn't possible to facilitate such living without some brains. Segel's characters may read like total numbskulls, but he acts them out in a friendly and affable manner.
The protagonist, Peter Klaven, is another of those socially awkward characters that Paul Rudd plays in a manner in which he looks like quite the loser but is associative in a strange kind of way, associative to the point that he becomes humorous.
Another refreshing change was seeing an impactful and useful supporting cast who left no stone unturned and infused their own sense of comedy through their characters making this more than just a show run by Rudd and Segel. Jon Favreau and J.K. Simmons in particular used stronger personalities to juxtapose with Rudd's reluctant character to great effect.
The movie shows that congregating with a bunch of dudes doesn't mean pulling out 'man classics' like 'Die Hard' or 'Happy Gilmore' for the 77th time. 'I Love You, Man' could be a worthy addition to that exclusive list.