Question: When is a bromance not a bromance? Answer: When one of the bros is a girl.
No, wait. Whatever way you look at it, Man Up is still a bromance: Jack (Pegg) and Nancy (Bell) meet, they down shots, they go bowling, they down pints, they become best buds.
Just because Nancy is played by charming Lake Bell, does not mean that she isn’t a Seth Rogan character struggling to get out of a woman’s body.
At its best, Man Up is a British-accented take on Nora Ephron's brand of spit-balling. Working from a solid script by Tess Morris, Pegg and Bell make for good to-and-fro, secondary characters (Horgan, Kinnear) keep us amused with antics and/or quips and director Ben Palmer (who previously presided over The Inbetweeners Movie – told you it was a bromance) brings an endearingly goofy touch.
Sadly, the mechanics of the movie are a bit screwy. Can anyone buy Lake Bell as a lonely singleton? Does anyone think it’s plausible that the hero could pick up the wrong girl on a blind date? Later – ‘twas ever thus – the film struggles to find convincing reasons to tear the blossoming romance apart.
But that's okay. The rom-com – or bromance with girl – has taken a kicking over recent years and has generated no stars since Matthew McConaughey moved on to fresher pastures. Man Up is not without minor flaws but it succeeds admirably well on its own terms.
Welcome back, discredited genre.
