Opening Day: 19 January 2006

Synopsis:

Overworked? Undersexed? So is advertising executive Ed Waxman (Brendan Fehr), who must come up with a great new ad campaign within 48 hours or he'll be fired. But his babe magnet brother, Cooper (Chris Klein), has other ideas: to get his stressed-out brother laid. From meeting single mothers to strippers to desperate older ladies, each dating encounter is a disaster. Ed has resigned himself to the fact that he's about to lose his job and will never have sex again...until he meets the woman of his dreams. Now, with hope and luck on his side, maybe - just maybe - he'll be able to save his job and have sex, all in the course of THE LONG WEEKEND.

Movie Review:

The Long Weekend follows in the footsteps of the glut of sex comedies that came (pardon the pun) our way, that the entire movie feels like a string of "been-there-seen-that-before" clips put together. They don't make comedies like they used to anymore, but instead infused sex and loads of toilet humour which numbs you a tad too much.

Not that it doesn't try to be funny. It does, but you can't help but feel that you're watching a part of the recycling process. That fart joke, check. That strip bar scene, you know what to expect. That filthy toilet, wow, I thought it beat the one in Trainspotting!

Perhaps the only refreshing presentation in The Long Weekend, is its "America's Funniest Home Videos" or "America's Horniest Animals" segments, which made the opening act, and interrupts the narrative with each thought that Brendan Fehr comes up with. But it got tired after a while, as each clip tried to best the other by being more raunchy, which ended up increasingly "in your face" with animal penises and loads of mechanical humping. If done artistically, you might even think that it's the Discovery Channel.

And what's the plot about you say? Suffice to know that Brendan Fehr plays Eddy Waxman, an advertising executive given a weekend to come up with an advertising campaign for a major account. Chris Klein (American Pie alumni) plays his sexually charged brother Cooper, whose the 8th most recognizable Western face in Japan. Wanting to celebrate Eddy's birthday, he hatches a plan to get his brother laid, and the plan stretches over the weekend with Cooper
trying to teach Eddy the tricks of the dating-getting-laid trade. It's all predictable stuff
from there, as we go to the strip joints, the bars, the bath-house, and even the jailhouse with attempted romps by sex-starved prisoners.

Like Deuce Bigelow, we also get to see a number of weird characters. The dating tips that were touted? Non-existent, unlike Hitch's, which one could possibly use. Here, instead of teaching you how to fish, you're only shown part of the fish. But then again, no one expects to learn how to date by going to the movies, right?

However if you're game for some unexplainable insane naughty fun, then The Long Weekend might just be the show for you to chase those blues away. It's not easy spouting those crazy lines, just stay during the end credits to watch those bloopers.

Movie Rating:

(A few cheap laughs which tried their best but ran out of steam midway through)

Review by Stefan Shih