Run, Fat Boy, Run [2007] - DVD (Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton, Hank Azaria, Dylan Moran, Stephen Merchant - Dir: David Schwimmer)

Simon Pegg is clearly, right now, someone who can do little wrong at the box office. Run Fatboy Run follows hot on the heels of Hot Fuzz, and again finds its star delivering a quality comedy turn, in a film that boasts a good few laughs too.

Directed by Friends star David Schwimmer, Run Fatboy Run casts Pegg as a security guard fed up of being outrun by the people he's supposed to catch. He's also determined to try and prove to his ex-fiancee (Thandie Newton) that he's a changed man, and thus decides to take on the London Marathon, where he'll be up against the new man in her life (Hank Azaria).

Pegg is on good form in Run Fatboy Run, and genuinely delivers a character you want to root for. Yet it's the supporting players who walk off with the plaudits too. Dylan Moran in particular is in great form, as is Harish Patel, while the likes of Thandie Newton, Hank Azaria and David Walliams also turn in good work.

Cleverly knowing not to outstay its welcome, and only occasionally stuttering under the weight of some laboured work behind the camera from Schwimmer, Run Fatboy Run is an easy, quite funny and light on the brain comedy, that helps cement Pegg's growing status as a quality leading actor. Worth checking out. --Jon Foster

Customer Reviews of Run, Fat Boy, Run [2007]

Country Girl
Essex, England UK
27th November 2008

Funny and light hearted
I watched this on a long plane flight, and not being one to be normally captured long enough to watch movies, I enjoyed this from start to finish.

Light hearted, funny and easy watching comedy with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. Why compare to other movies? Just enjoy this for what it is.... boyish humour with a twist of love interest!

Great!

happyreviewer
UK
1st November 2008

Stop, Fat Boy, Stop!
Is what I was mentally shouting at this DVD from about ten minutes in. I continued with that mantra to the very end. I don't know why I persevered. It doesn't improve. It completely failed to draw me into the story right from the start and I left the room a few times without pausing, which is never a good sign.

Simon Pegg's films just seem to get worse and worse. Shaun of the Dead was excellent, Hot Fuzz was similar but less funny, though it was saved by the action sequences, and Run Fat Boy Run is lame. The jokes are so unfunny and the acting is glib. It's boring and flat more than anything else. I suppose it kills time, but that's all it does.

Its only saving grace is the nice setting in London where we can see landmarks such as Tower Bridge, the Gherkin, Canary Wharf and the Houses of Parliament. The sound track isn't even that good, so it isn't even an excuse to listen to some nice music.

This is definitely one to leave at the bottom of the DVD pile until you're really stuck for anything else to watch. Oh, and David Walliams's small part where he appears in the queue at the bakery where Thandie Newton works was really awful. What were they thinking? Is he Pegg's mate?

jobo_123
North Yorkshire, England
27th October 2008

Average!!
Here's an average review for an average film.

I am a huge fan of Simon Pegg and in my opinion he has stared in some great films, so I was really eager to see this film, however I was disappointed. I felt the film was a slow starter and found I was contiually waiting for it to be funny!! Yes some of the dialogue raised a smile but that about it! I was ready for a great laugh and it just didn't happen. I am glad I waited till the DVD release, and I only paid £5.99 glad it was not more.

Antonio Moncayo
Zaragoza
10th October 2008

His worse so far
I watched this on TV and I was grateful not to have watched in the cinema.
The plot is simple and has potencial for a good comedy but sadly apart from Thandie Newton there is very little else to admire in this film .
From the tecnichal side of things , the running training , race etc is woeful and I hope no one takes it seriously ( ie overtake the top runners in a marathon after a few minutes ).

2 stars

A.A.C.M
Essex
27th August 2008

Possibly Simon Pegg's best performance to date...
After being slightly let down by "Hot Fuzz", I had high hopes for "Run Fat Boy Run" as I saw a couple of trailers about a month before it came out and thought it looked pretty good. Whilst I never got to see it at the cinema, my sister just brought this DVD for my birthday recently.

Directed by David Schwimmer (Friends' Ross Geller) and with a fantastic cast including Dylan Moran (Black Books), Thandie Newton (The Pursuit of Happiness) and Hank Azaria (Friends' David "from Minsk", the scientist boyfriend of Pheobe Buffay), the story of "Run Fat Boy Run" centres around Simon Pegg's character Dennis Doyle, a shop security guard who, since getting cold feet on his wedding day and jilting his pregnant fiancee Libby (Newton) at the altar 5 years ago, has been, in no uncertain terms, a miserable failure ever since.

Spurned on by a series of unfortunate events, he resolves to prove to the world, and to Libby that he can start something and finish it, and thus enters a 26 mile marathon along the Thames as a way to prove this new, changed him to Libby. The end result is a charming, touching, wonderfully funny and well rounded romantic comedy that can be enjoyed just as much by the lads as it can by the girls, and not only that, it also happens to be Pegg's finest role to date as the hapless Dennis - his is a character that you will find hard not to love and in a sense get behind, even in the face of love rivals (Azaria's toffy-nosed Whit), intense training (his landlord, Mr. G, played by Harish Patel) and the odd injury or two.