Run Fatboy Run

I finally got around to seeing Run Fatboy Run the other night, and I was pleasantly surprised. The little I'd heard of it made it sound less than fully worth my interest and I was flat wrong. It's quite silly and also quite good.

Dennis (Simon Pegg) ditched his pregnant fiance (Thande Newton) at the altar, and in the five years afterwards his life has been nothing but shit. She has taken up with a hotshot American (Hank Azaria) who, among other things, runs marathons. More or less on a dare, Dennis says he'll run the fictitious Nike River Run marathon, and by doing so he thinks somehow he'll win his woman back.

The film manages to lampoon mainstays of the underdog sports movie genre, including a bizarre pair of "coaches". The filmmakers did their homework; I recognized two camera shots, one lifted straight from a Bud Greenspan film and the other from the 1982 Ironman Triathlon. Those alone make it worth shelf space in the Superfan's collection of track movies, but it's also very funny.

350 meters! (out of a possible 400)