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While our ingenues scurry toward teen best sellers and David O. Russell flicks, here’s the next generation of talented leading men swaggering into a dude-bro Sex and the City.
At night, best friends played by Zac Efron, Miles Teller, and Michael B. Jordan — aka the player, the goof, and the romantic — pop Viagra and head to the bar. In the mornings, they discuss their conquests over brunch. They never say the names Samantha, Carrie, and Charlotte, but they’ve gotta see the parallels. After all, they’re so pop culture-obsessed they quote Jerry Maguire and insult each other with zingers like “What are you, Bridget Jones?” and the funny but flummoxing “You’re like the Judge Reinhold of Beverly Hills Cop about not getting in a relationship, except you’re an asshole.”
The guys look like puppies playing dress-up in their fancy Manhattan jobs (Jordan is a doctor, Efron and Teller design chick-lit book covers with the breathtaking insight that women like shoes).
But while it’s easy to tease first-time writer-director Tom Gormican’s raunchy rom-com, the trio has a shaggy chemistry, and most of the jokes hit — so many, in fact, that when the lads vow that they’ll never, ever, have girlfriends again, we don’t actually think they’re serious until the rushed final act when we realize that was supposed to be a plot point.
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Kudos to Imogen Poots and Mackenzie Davis for playing interesting human beings, not shallow fuck buddies (though these commitment-phobic guys wish that’s all they were).
And watch out for a closing credits cameo from Michael K. Williams, who played Omar against Jordan in The Wire. It’s all in the game.
