Writers Jackie and Jeff Filgo came to prominence in the late ’90s with their popular sitcom “That 70s Show,” and in 2011 took to the big screen with the comedy piece “Take Me Home Tonight.”
Accompanied by “That ’70s Show” star Topher Grace, “Take Me Home Tonight” blends aspects and ideas from all time classics like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “License to Drive,” “Can’t Hardly Wait,” and “Trojan War” with the result being substantially inferior to any of the aforementioned films.
80s movies are contained with a certain mystique that defines their charm, and taking a present day story and setting it in the 1980s just isn’t the same thing. “Take Me Home Tonight” misses in that when watching, one can immediately tell that it’s not really the ’80s, but is more of an exaggerated caricature of that time period. The characters are dressed in ridiculous outfits – frizzled hair and blinding leg warmers, “Miami Vice” – style suits and black plastic sunglasses – and it comes across as completely unnatural. The result is an okay movie with an unoriginal story that seems like it was made simply as an excuse to play great songs in the background.
The story begins in the summer of 1984 as we are introduced to the primary characters and long time friends who are about to separate after graduating high school. Braniac Matt Franklin (Grace) is heading off to MIT to study engineering while his twin sister Wendy (Anna Faris) is staying local to continue her relationship with her long time boyfriend. Matt’s best friend Barry (Dan Fogler) is bypassing college to go to work at a local auto dealership.
After a brief intro, the story then jumps four years – to the summer of 1988. Matt has returned from college and is working at a video rental store in the mall while trying to figure out what to do with his life. While minding the store, Matt’s high school crush Tori (Teresa Palmer) comes in. Matt attempts to flirt and Tori casually invites him to a party taking place that evening. The movie follows the shenanigans of Matt and Barry as they attempt to shred their nerdy high school images and become alpha males at the party.
“Take Me Home Tonight” has some laughs, and certainly isn’t the worst movie you will ever see. But its story is flat and predictable, and something that has been done dozens of time before by far better films. The characters are decent, though somewhat overplayed. Matt is the predictable straight man – really smart therefore he’s deemed a nerd, though he doesn’t really look that nerdy, and Barry is the standard overweight obnoxious sidekick that has a foolish answer for every harrowing situation that occurs, with each resulting in more trouble than the one before.
And while the soundtrack is great, it demonstrates to a tee what is wrong with the overall tone of the film. The great thing about a movie like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is that the music being played in the background is pure ’80s music – the types of songs that would be playing over radios on a random day in 1986. The only songs played in “Take Me Home Tonight” are ’80s hits – the typical chart toppers one would expect to find on a CD being pushed via infomercial at one o’clock on a Wednesday morning. Even the title comes from the hit song by Eddie Money, and really has no other meaning to the story.
Watching a 2011 movie that takes place in the ’80s and has an ’80s style is akin to reading a book about mountain climbing as opposed to taking a trek up the side of one. Skip the impostors and go for the real thing.
by – Matt Christopher
