Can Fred Flarsky ever forget Charlotte Field and find true happiness?
It’s a long shot brought to short stop in LONG SHOT, a deliciously captivating, deliriously romantic political comedy.
I don’t think its drawing a long bow entertaining the idea that LONG SHOT is the type of movie Frank Capra might be making if he were alive today.
Socially, sexually and politically pungent, LONG SHOT delivers over lumbering charades of contemporary comedy that are unsparingly insipid and uninspiring.
There’s a mordancy in LONG SHOT that is refreshing and congenial.
Charlotte Field, played with dazzling glamour and poise by Charlize Theron is the Secretary of State for the United States government. Smart, sophisticated, and accomplished, she’s a powerhouse diplomat with political ideals.
When The President, a former TV actor who played The President to great acclaim and then was elected to the Office – shades of recent Ukraine antics – announces that he wont be running for a second term, Charlotte asks for and is given endorsement to run for the Office.
Enter Fred Flarsky played in affable everyman mode by Seth Rogen, a gifted and free-spirited journalist with an affinity for trouble. The two have nothing in common, except that she was his babysitter and first crush.
When Fred unexpectedly reconnects with Charlotte, he charms her with his self-deprecating humour and his memories of her youthful idealism. As she prepares to make a run for the Presidency, Charlotte impulsively hires Fred as her speechwriter, much to the dismay of her trusted advisors.
A fish out of water on Charlotte’s elite team, Fred is unprepared for her glamorous lifestyle in the limelight. However, sparks fly as their unmistakable chemistry leads to a round-the-world romance and a series of unexpected and dangerous incidents.
LONG SHOT takes a long, laugh filled look at the pressures of keeping true to your ideals in the world of politics, how compromise, a sometimes positive thing, can be corrosive and cynical.
It presents a vain and narcissistic ninny in the White House and a reptilian media tycoon pretty much calling the shots, that tips the comedy into satire.