Long Shot (Blu-Ray + DVD + Digital HD)
Blu-Ray Reviews | Jul 30th, 2019
Starring: Seth Rogen, Charlize Theron, O’Shea Jackson Jr., June Diane Raphael, Ravi Patel, Bob Odenkirk, Alexander Skarsgård, Andy Serkis
Written By: Dan Sterling, Liz Hannah
Directed By: Jonathan Levine
Studio: Lionsgate
Buy On Amazon.com
Long Shot is a romantic / political comedy starring Seth Rogan and Charlize Theron. It’s a really funny movie, it’s light-hearted but also offers up some nice political commentary too.
The movie is about an out of work journalist Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen) who reunites with his former babysitter, who happens to be Secretary of State Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron) and is running for President. She hires Fred as her speech writer, even though her team doesn’t want him around. Fred always had a crush on her since they were kids, and the two get close and form a relationship while traveling overseas. As with most rom-coms, things happen and their relationship is tested when an unflattering video surfaces of Fred.
Long Shot is another movie I didn’t know anything about but figured I’d watch it anyway just based on the cast. I’m happy I did because it’s one of my favorites of the year. I was pretty much laughing from start to finish with it. I usually like Seth Rogen movies so it didn’t take the movie that long to win me over. The first 5 minutes felt out of place but was still funny and I guess we had to see what kind of journalist he was. I’ve liked Charlize Theron for awhile too and was a nice surprise to see her in a comedy as well. O’Shea Jackson Jr was hilarious as Fred’s best friend, and there was a funny twist in the movie that made me laugh out loud a few times too. They had great chemistry and of course so did Rogen and Theron as well.
Andy Serkis is in the movie as a slimy Fox News owner kind of guy, and put on all this makeup. You learn in the extras that that wasn’t required for the role, but Andy wanted to do it for the character. Bob Odenkirk is in the movie for a few minutes but isn’t in it all that much. I kind of would have liked to have seen a movie about his character, him wanting to be an actor more than President. The rest of the cast was great too, Alexander Skarsgård playing a dorky Prime Minister of Canada, June Diane Raphael and Ravi Patel as Charlotte Field’s right hand people.
What I liked about the movie is it was light-hearted and fun, but raunchy and filled with lots of funny jokes. There was the typical romantic comedy kind of things in there but felt new or different in a way. I thought the idea with the laptop camera coming into play was a funny idea, and liked how the characters handled it in the end. As much as I liked the movie, the plot was still pretty predictable but I’m fine with that. One other complaint I had was with the conversation with Bob Odenkirk and Charlize Theron. I’m not sure but it looks like she’s on a blue/green screen and he’s just talking to no one. Maybe they couldn’t film the scene together but it seemed obvious to me that she wasn’t really there. A major nitpick but still, I noticed it.
Extras were great and surprisingly, there was a lot of them. Usually with comedies, studios usually have a gag reel and deleted scene and that’s about it. Not for Long Shot. There was a good almost half hour making of featurette and there’s a funny interview with Seth and Charlize talking about meeting each other for the first time and things like that. After that there’s lots of little featurettes on the characters or certain scenes in the movie. Lionsgate also sent me a privacy cover for my laptop camera, which I immediately put on. I’ve been using a piece of tape on mine but this is better because it slides open when you want to use it. It’s a nice, little tie-in with the movie and an interesting promotional item.
Long Shot surprised me. I thought it might be okay but it ended up being one of my favorite movies of the year. I was laughing from start to finish and even want to re-watch it with my wife soon. It seems like one of those movies that I will watch a bunch of times and tell others to watch as well. I’m not sure everybody will like it but I’m a sucker for a funny rom com every once and awhile. It doesn’t hurt it’s in a political setting either. I highly recommend checking out the movie if this sounds like something up your alley.
Features:
All’s Fair in Love and Politics: Making Long Shot
Seven Minutes in Heaven: Seth and Charlize Uncensored
Secret Weapons
Epic Flarsky Falls
Prime Minister Steward O-Rama
Hanging With Boyz II Men
Just Kinda Crushing It!
The First Mister: A Portrait
An Imperfect Union
Love and Politics
Friends Like These
Video:
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio:
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles:
English SDH, Spanish
Bottom Line: One of my favorite movies of the year! No, really!
Running Time: 125 mins
Rating: R
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating:
