How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is based on Toby Young's memoir of the same name and features British comic actor Simon Pegg again making inroads with an American audience. This time he transplants himself in the USA courtesy of an offer he can’t refuse. He can’t refuse because one of his employees has left and he owns the office fax machine. Figg plays Sidney Young a hard hitting journalist with lots of integrity but an abrasive personality. His irreverent magazine is failing badly so when a New York call comes in from a hirsute suit (the ageless Jeff Bridges as magazine mogul Clayton Harding) he’s off to the Big Apple. Even by New York standards he proves to be rude as he tries to decipher the code of scaling the literary corporate ladder. Kirsten Dunst is Alison Olsen who finds Sidney as repulsive as everyone else but is forced to quasi mentor him at Sharps magazine. It’s not until he surrenders his moral compass and agrees to play ball with the manipulative agent to the stars Eleanor Johnson (Gillian Anderson) that things start to turn around for him. He also starts to make some headway with Sophie Maes (Megan Fox) the girl of his dreams. Figg has a talent for being believable whether playing a slob or being straight laced and he’s a past master of physical comedy which serves him pretty well here. Although this film is entertaining his other films are better so maybe coming to America will win him new friends and motivate people to have a second look at Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.