'Trainwreck' (Judd Apatow, Amy Schumer) Review (1 Viewer)

Yavin · Jul 17, 2015

In short:

If you know Amy Schumer from her hit Comedy Central series, Inside Amy Schumer, you'll know that she isn't the type to play the prototypical rom-com female lead. And in director Judd Apatow's latest, Trainwreck, she definitely stays true to form. As Amy Townsend, a commitment-phobic New York magazine writer who prefers to hit it and quit it, she drinks, parties and tokes up like nobody's business. But when her taskmaster editor assigns her to write a profile on humanitarian and sports doctor Aaron Conners (Bill Hader), Amy finds herself wanting to leave behind her old ways and settle down. Yep, in some ways, Trainwreck is just like every other romantic comedy you've ever seen. And yet, in others, it's totally different, thanks to the movie's brilliant and hilarious reversal of gender roles. Otherwise, Trainwreck delivers exactly what you might expect from an Apatow production. It has a ton of laugh-out-loud moments, a smattering of gross-out jokes, and plenty of heart. The end result is a movie that's far from what its title implies. If anything, the Amy Schumer train is only now just pulling out of the station, and everyone should want to be on-board.

Click here to read my full review.

Film rating: 4.5 out of 5

Vic Pardo · Jul 17, 2015

Yavin said:
In short:

If you know Amy Schumer from her hit Comedy Central series, Inside Amy Schumer, you'll know that she isn't the type to play the prototypical rom-com female lead. And in director Judd Apatow's latest, Trainwreck, she definitely stays true to form. As Amy Townsend, a commitment-phobic New York magazine writer who prefers to hit it and quit it, she drinks, parties and tokes up like nobody's business. But when her taskmaster editor assigns her to write a profile on humanitarian and sports doctor Aaron Conners (Bill Hader), Amy finds herself wanting to leave behind her old ways and settle down. Yep, in some ways, Trainwreck is just like every other romantic comedy you've ever seen. And yet, in other ways, it's totally different, thanks to how the movie brilliantly and hilariously reverses gender roles. Otherwise, Trainwreck delivers exactly what you might expect from an Apatow production. It has a ton of laugh-out-loud moments, a smattering of gross-out jokes, and plenty of heart. The end result is a movie that's far from what its title implies. If anything, the Amy Schumer train is only now just pulling out of the station, and everyone should want to be on-board.

Click here to read my full review.

Film rating: 4.5 out of 5

Just out of curiosity, does the magazine writer (Amy) sleep with her subject before she's done the piece or after? If after, does she sleep with him before or after the issue comes out? Sounds like some serious journalistic ethics issues come into play here, yet I haven't read any reviews that address this. Does her editor fire her at any point? Just curious.

Yavin · Jul 17, 2015

Before, and, yes, but not for the reason you might think.

TravisR · Jul 17, 2015

I like Amy Schumer on her show and I found her funny here but she was the weakest link in a very funny cast. Bill Hader and Colin Quinn are both excellent, Dave Attell has some pretty funny stuff in a small role and even LeBron James ends up being funny. I vastly the preferred the second half of the movie when there's more serious and emotional content.

Brett_M · Jul 20, 2015

Amy Schumer is very funny in the film but I was most surprised at her acting range, especially in the more dramatic, emotional scenes. Enjoyed the film a lot. The end was awesome.

schan1269 · Jul 20, 2015

TravisR said:
I like Amy Schumer on her show and I found her funny here but she was the weakest link in a very funny cast. Bill Hader and Colin Quinn are both excellent, Dave Attell has some pretty funny stuff in a small role and even LeBron James ends up being funny. I vastly the preferred the second half of the movie when there's more serious and emotional content.

Being the weakest link is what made it great.

She's good. Everybody else was on their A+ game.

(I don't think she has an A+ game yet. If she finds her "Wiig-ness" she'll get there)

Patrick Sun · Jul 24, 2015

I thought this film ran long, far too long for its premise, so I basically lost interest 2/3 of the way through the film. Maybe a tighter cut keeps my attention, but for me, it just didn't quite hit the spot. Perhaps a film titled "Trainwreck" ramped up my expectations of how far down the rabbit hole we'd go with the title character, but how it plays out just didn't quite have the tone that hit home for this viewer.

I give it 2.5 stars or a grade of C+.

Robert Crawford · Jul 24, 2015

No way, a comedy should be over two hours in my opinion. Too bad this film wasn't like 105 minutes.

Malcolm R · Jul 24, 2015

Robert Crawford said:
No way, a comedy should be over two hours in my opinion. Too bad this film wasn't like 105 minutes.

I've noticed that many recent comedies seem very long compared to a few years ago. Most of Melissa McCarthy's comedies are quite long. I think Spy was about 125 minutes; unrated versions of Bridesmaids, Identity Thief, and The Heat are all 2+ hours.

Bob Cashill · Jul 24, 2015

Apatow's movies always run long, and longer still on home video. I'm cutting them in my head as I watch them--this scene's too long, this could go, etc. 105m would be ideal.

Vic Pardo · Jul 25, 2015

One reason so many old comedies are revered is that they were short. The Marx Bros.' DUCK SOUP (1933) was 68 minutes. W.C. Fields' THE BANK DICK was 72 minutes.

In New York, so many baby boomers grew up watching Abbott & Costello's Universal features made from 1941-1955 every Sunday in a 90-minute time slot. This meant cutting 15-20 minutes from the films, which usually came in at 85 minutes. When I finally bought a box set of A&C movies ten years ago, I was eager to see the "uncut" versions. Alas, I found them interminable. Maybe WPIX did us a favor by cutting them! (Granted, A&C's humor hasn't aged well in my view, anyway.)

Long comedies are only worthwhile when they have epic plots and lots of action like IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD,MAD WORLD and THE BLUES BROTHERS. And, yes, I'd love to see Landis' longer cut of BB.

Colin Jacobson · Jul 28, 2015

Patrick Sun said:
I thought this film ran long, far too long for its premise, so I basically lost interest 2/3 of the way through the film. Maybe a tighter cut keeps my attention, but for me, it just didn't quite hit the spot. Perhaps a film titled "Trainwreck" ramped up my expectations of how far down the rabbit hole we'd go with the title character, but how it plays out just didn't quite have the tone that hit home for this viewer.

I give it 2.5 stars or a grade of C+.

I agree with Patrick. Sporadically funny and entertaining but like all Apatow movies, too long, and Amy rarely really comes across like a "trainwreck". She holds down a good job and is considered for a promotion - sure, she sleeps around, but that doesn't make her a "trainwreck".

LeBron had more laugh out loud moments for me than the rest of the cast combined - he was terrific! The gimmick of "insanely wealthy athlete is a cheapskate" should've been cheesy but LeBron sells it in such a peppy way that it works...

Colin Jacobson · Jul 28, 2015

Vic Pardo said:
Long comedies are only worthwhile when they have epic plots and lots of action like IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD,MAD WORLD and THE BLUES BROTHERS. And, yes, I'd love to see Landis' longer cut of BB.

If there's a movie that doesn't need to be longer, it's "Blues Brothers"! That one's already bloated enough as it is...

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