Starring: Elizabeth Banks, James Marsden, Ethan Suplee, Bill Burr, Gillian Jacobs, Sarah Wright Olsen
Directed by: Steven Brill
Synopsis: A reporter’s dream of becoming a news anchor is compromised after a one-night stand leaves her stranded in downtown L.A. without a phone, car, ID or money – and only 8 hours to make it to the most important job interview of her life.
Elizabeth Banks seems to have appeared in almost every comedy made in the last fifteen years. She is likeable and attractive and sometimes funny. The problem is, when you star in everything, you are going to be in the odd duffer. This is a duffer.
Don’t get me wrong, Elizabeth Banks is still likeable, attractive and occasionally funny, but the movie as a whole is just average. The film only got a limited release which, when it has a big name like Banks in it, probably tells you it’s not going to set the world on fire.
Banks plays news anchor Meghan Miles, on the cusp of a promotion and newly dumped by her boyfriend. She is then told that the promotion has been given to someone else. She wants to sit on her sofa and cry, her friends want her to hit the town and drown her sorrows. She gets hideously drunk and ends up back at nice guy Gordon’s (Marsden) pad. They have themselves a good time, and when Meghan tries to sneak off in the morning she listens to answer phone message from her producer telling her that her rival for the job has dropped out of the running, giving her a free run. She just needs to come in that evening to read the news as normal, do a good job, and the promotion is hers. Things don’t go to plan. The fates conspire against Meghan (she loses her phone, her car gets towed) and she gets into quite a few scrapes on her walk of shame.
The plot is pretty ludicrous. At times I found myself screaming at the TV “JUST GET A TAXI”. Seriously, it couldn’t have been that hard to get from one place to another in this day and age. But, I also know films are escapism so I went with it. Meghan ends up meeting numerous characters up and down the social scale on her travels, from prostitutes to drug dealers. They are all stereotypes, including the perception of Meghan herself (everyone assumes she is a prostitute because she has a short dress on). The worst part of the film was the inevitable conclusion, where some sort of ‘message’ about people accepting one another was rammed down our throats.
The film did raise two or three laughs between my wife and I, and wasn’t quite as bad as I was expecting having read other reviews. It was, however, clear to see why it shot straight to the land of VOD though. I just read that Elizabeth Banks is getting sued about thieving the screenplay for Walk of Shame, making it an even worse decision to make it in the first place.