Parents' Guide to Long Shot

It's easygoing, studded with genuine-belly-laugh jokes, and has a great cast, but this political romcom loses points for being both utterly predictable and outrageously unrealistic. Rogen, playing a riff on the unsuitable-boyfriend-who-gets-the-hot-girl-anyway character that made him a movie star years ago in Knocked Up, is as charming as ever. And he has real chemistry with Theron, who's as loose and relaxed as she's ever been on-screen. Scenes in which their characters are sparring, flirting, or doing both at the same time are priceless, particularly during one riotous scene in which Madame Secretary and Fred score drugs in a club immediately before Charlotte has to manage an international crisis. It turns out that Molly is an excellent prelude to hostage negotiations, even if Charlotte is conducting them in Fred's teal windbreaker with glitter and sequins falling out of her hair.

But viewers will know where this comedy is headed the moment that Fred catches his ex-babysitter's eye at a party they're both improbably attending. He's a big mess, while she looks like she has it all together at first glance -- but of course, her glossy exterior hides her inner chaos and loneliness. He draws her out and makes her laugh, she makes him respectable ... or does she? The great gaffe this movie makes is asking us to buy that when Charlotte gets over her reservations about dating a schlubby pothead raving liberal alterna-journalist, the American public is enthusiastically willing to embrace the couple. In a world in which political candidates, particularly female ones, are subjected to the most withering scrutiny, would Fred Flarsky's "F" word-laden journalistic output really fly? Unfortunately, for most viewers, this idea will be a bridge too far, and the film doesn't treat this notion satirically or ironically. In the end, the whole enterprise smacks of dude wish fulfillment -- and since viewers have seen this particular average-guy-gets-hot-girl fantasy enacted repeatedly on screens both large and small, it really does a number on the funny.