Nice guy

Rating: 7/10 (14 April 2009)

Richard Curtis has a knack of writing tremendous scripts for light-hearted Britcom. I'm not 100% convinced by his ability as a director though, just like Love Actually, this suffers the burden of someone who's too close to his material to keep the film focused.
For a comedy, there are surprisingly few laugh-out-loud moments with the emphasis more on charm. That said, "Nice guy" is a gem. The film takes place is the Curtis version of England where nothing really bad ever happens and everyone falls in love, which is nice enough though some audiences I think will be more demanding than ours was.
The performances of the leads draw on their strengths as actors and personalities - the excellent Rhys Ifans plays to type perfectly. For me, though, the stand-out performer once more was Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He was tremendous and seemed to really enjoy the production.
Irrespective of the quality... it's great fun.