funny and more affecting than I expected

Rating: 8/10 (23 June 2012)

In Run, Fatboy, Run, Simon Pegg plays a shlub to tries to prove himself to a girl he wronged years before.
While the movie was funny from the get go, at first I was skeptical about the whole proving himself angle. Pegg's character comes across as a loser with no redeeming values, and at first I had trouble sympathizing with him.
But the movie is smart, slowly allowing you to warm up to Pegg and to begin to root for him, at least a little. The movie doesn't get carried away with itself; if I were to jump from the beginning to the end of the movie, I would think it was absurd, but the film does a good job of building slowly and somewhat unsteadily to its end.
It is also very funny. Maybe not as funny as Hot Fuzz, but very funny all the same, and quite likable.