2 Guys 1 Blog

Nate’s Take

The absurdity of the entire situation in She’s Out of My League isn’t the problem. We’ve seen losers and buffoons hook up with babes plenty of times, and it never seems to bother us. Even the last good movie Jay Baruchel was in, Knocked Up, featured a guy dating out of his “point spread.” The problem with Baruchel’s character, Kirk, is he seems to lack the redeeming qualities that make us love and root for the little guy, the loser, the nerd.

The plot of the movie is entirely predictable, with the Kirk’s only opposition being his friends and family telling him the girl he’s dating, Molly (Alice Eve), is too good for him. Soon they realize the error of their ways, and resolve to right their wrongs and help Kirk realize that he isn’t the “5″ he thought he was, but rather he’s a “hard 10!” Ugh.

To its credit, the movie does dish out a few laughs, most coming from Kirk’s best friend Stainer (T.J. Miller—who sounds like Jason Lee and looks like Napoleon Dynamite). Vulgarity and gross out gags are the name of the game here, and a couple of them are amusing.

In the end, She’s Out of My League doesn’t do anything we haven’t seen before and haven’t seen done better and it’s a shame that Baruchel’s first lead role was such a clunker.

Grade: C -

Nick’s Take

The premise of She’s Out of My League surrounds a loser who finds the lost cell phone of a good looking woman and from there we are treated to a pretty good comedy.  Kirk (Jay Baruchel) has been trying to get back with his ex-girlfriend, Marnie (Lindsay Sloane) who dumped him two years ago.  Kirk’s friends Stainer (T.J. Wilson), Jack (Mike Vogel), and Devon (Nate Torrence) all are telling him to get over her.  All four of these characters work together at the Pittsburgh airport and this is how Kirk meets Molly (Alice Eve). 

After they meet, Molly starts to like Kirk, which everybody in the world thinks is impossible.  Molly’s best friend Patty (Krysten Ritter) as well as Stainer continue to put into their heads that one is too good and one is too bad for each other.  This is where we see the number scale come into play.  Molly is considered a “10″, Kirk is a “5″, Stainer is a “6″ or a “7″, Jack is an “8″,… I truly felt that they were in high school when they all were talking like that.  I understand that this was a huge drawing point on the movie, but for their ages, a bit childish in my opinion. 

Director Jim Field Smith’s history is usually in a British comedy tone, considering he’s from the United Kingdom.  He’s a member of a popular British sketch group, The Dutch Elm Conservatoire.  For directing his first well hyped movie, I’d say he knocked it out of the park to be quite honest.  The movie is funny, plain and simple.  There are serious laugh out loud scenes that extend for minutes it seems.  I felt that there was one scene in particular where it has been done before, but not to this extent, and it was absolutely memorable.

The plot gets a bit cliche’ and at the turning point in the film, I didn’t know if it could recover from the obvious cliche’ moment of this type of romantic comedy.  It did though.  The shining stars of She’s Out of My League besides the obvious main two characters played by Jay Baruchel and Alice Eve, are T.J. Wilson and Krysten Ritter, those two deserve a round of applause.  Overall, this movie produced a very high amount of laughs and for that reason, you should go see it.

Grade: B -