Arts & Entertainment
Film: The Five-Year
Engagement
Film Review: Restless City
By Kam Williams
Special to The Skanner News
W
Besides the skits falling flat, the tortoise-paced picture
has bigger problems in an abysmal script and romantic
leads with no screen chemistry. The oil-and-water casting
of loose cannon Jason Segel opposite prim-and-proper
Emily Blunt has disaster written all over it.
His Tom Solomon’s a sous-chef who dreams of opening a
restaurant in San Francisco, while her Violet Barnes is a
recent Ph.D. with hopes of landing a teaching position at
Berkeley in Psychology. Just past the opening credits, she
accepts his marriage proposal and puts on the ring, although
they both agree that it might be wise to delay tying the knot
until their careers have had a chance to blossom. That deci-
sion doesn’t sit well with their aging relatives, but at least it
means they won’t have to decide right away whether to be
married by a minister or a rabbi.
As time passes, the protagonists find additional excuses to
postpone the nuptials, like when her sister Suzie (Alison
Brie) is left pregnant after a one-night stand with his best
friend, Alex (Chris Pratt). Eventually, Violet and Tom drift
so far apart that it’s not much of a surprise when she sleeps
with the head of her department (Rhys Ifans) or when he’s
seduced behind the salad bar by a cute, young co-worker
(Dakota Johnson).
“Can this relationship be saved?” may be the burning
question. But don’t expect to care when you’ve never real-
ly been asked to invest emotionally in such an
unsympathetic pair of hesi-
tant hedonists.
Make it stop!
Harlem Provides
Backdrop for Gritty
Survival Saga
community comprised primarily of
African expatriates. Though sabo-
taged at times by mood-setting
pauses and some stilted dialogue,
Restless City is still sufficiently
engaging to remain recommended for
devotees of unsanitized dramatic fare
bordering on cinema verite.
Forget pimps, it’s apparently just as
hard out there for a street peddler.
Very Good (2.5 stars)
Rated R for drug use and brief sexu-
ality.
In English, French, Wolof and Yoru-
ba with subtitles.
Running time: 80 minutes
Distributor: AFFRM
IDEOS
READER’S COMMENTS
EVENT LISTINGS
AND MUCH MORE!
‘Can this relationship be
saved?’ may be the burning
question
That, in a nutshell is the perilous
plotline of Restless City, a super-real-
istic, slice-of-life saga marking the
directorial debut of Andrew Dosun-
mu. The Nigeria-born filmmaker is
already well-known for his award-
winning music
video work with
such icons as
C o m m o n ,
Wyclef
Jean,
Maxwell, Tracy
Chapman, Aaron
Neville and the
late Isaac Hayes.
Here, he makes a promising foray
into full-length features via a visual-
ly-captivating adventure which offers
a penetrating peek inside a vibrant
LOCAL NEWS
NATIONAL NEWS
BOOK REVIEWS
JOBS, BIDS, CLASSIFIEDS
T
his underwhelming sitcom has been heavily promot-
ed as “From the producer of ‘Bridesmaids,’” as if to
imply that Judd Apatow has a golden touch that
ensures the success of any movie project he’s blessed. How-
ever, the undisputed King of Crude has been associated
with just about as many flops (ala ‘Wanderlust’ and ‘Year
One’) as hits (like ‘Superbad’ and ‘Knocked Up’).
Unfortunately, ‘The Five-Year Engagement’ fits more in
the former category than the latter. Remember how the
hilarious Bridesmaids kept you howling from beginning to
end in spite of yourself? Well, don’t expect to laugh out
loud even once while watching this relatively-funereal,
two-hour endurance test.
Yes, the film does certainly trade in all of the anticipated
Apatow staples, if that sophomoric brand of humor suits
your taste. There’s the gratuitous male nudity, the coarse
jokes with profanity serving as punch lines (“Suck my
bleeping bleep!”), and such suggestive sight gags as a char-
acter simulating sex by gyrating his hips behind a carrot
dipped in whipped cream. Much of this comic relief arrives
courtesy of an ethnically-diverse support team comprised of
an Asian (Randall Park), an East Indian (Mindy Kaling) and
an African-American (Kevin Hart).
WE’RE ALWAYS ONLINE AT WWW.THESKANNER.COM
By Kam Williams
Special to The Skanner News
hen Djbril (Sy Alassane)
left his native Senegal for
the U.S., he harbored high
hopes of making it as a musician. But
while pursuing his version of the elu-
sive American Dream, the 21
year-old immigrant pays the rent by
hustling bootlegged CDs and other
assorted contraband on the street of
lower Manhattan.
Afterhours, he retreats via moped to
a rough side of Harlem where the
struggle for survival only intensifies.
Uptown, Djbril’s Achilles heel is
exposed when he takes an interest in
pretty Trini (Sky Grey), the prover-
bial prostitute with a heart of gold.
The knight in shining armor helps
the wayward woman find a legitimate
line of work as a hairdresser. Unfor-
tunately, losing a productive ‘ho
doesn’t sit well
with her pimp,
Bekay
(Tony
Okungbowa).
Complicating mat-
ters is the fact that
the exploitative
creep also happens
to be Djibril’s
boss, which means it’s merely a mat-
ter of time before the situation
triangulates into an ugly confronta-
tion over the fetching femme fatale.
Fair (1 star)
Rated R for sexuality,
nudity, coarse humor and
pervasive profanity.
Running time: 124 min-
utes
Distributor: Universal
Pictures
May 2, 2012 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 7