I’ve seen Run, Fatboy, Run a couple times now (read my SXSW review), and I’ll still recommend it for Dylan Moran alone. But I’ll also agree that it’s far from great. In fact, it has a lot of flaws, most of which stem from the film’s uneven pace (perhaps fitting for a comedy about a marathon?) and the lack of a definite goal (ill-fitting for a comedy about a marathon — the movie has no real narrative finish line, only a literal one). I’ll even concur with the criticisms that it is awfully conventional, though I believe that by nature comedy has to be conventional in at least some way in order to function correctly.
However, the one thing I will not tolerate in negative reviews of Run, Fatboy, Run, of which there are many, is its being called a derivative romantic comedy. Derivative, sure; as I mentioned, it is conventional, and it is predictable, and it does seem very, very familiar, plot-wise (name me 10 classic comedies that aren’t). But romantic comedy? I can’t say exactly how many critics are labeling the film as such, but going by blurbs found on Rotten Tomatoes, there are at least seven, including “top critic” Desson Thomas of the Washington Post. Sorry, guys, but that’s just lazy reviewing from lazy critics who aren’t even paying attention to a film’s story, let alone displaying a basic sense of film study. I may not have seen enough films from before I was born (because, of course, no critic can see enough), but at least I know the definition of romantic comedy. The meaning is right there in the genre name, after all.
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