Customer Reviews

Just Friends

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

At a high school graduation party, overweight Chris Brander (Ryan Reynolds) attempts to reveal his true feelings for his best friend Jamie Palomino (Amy Smart), but ends up making an utter fool of himself. What's worse, his humiliation takes place in front of his jeering teenage peers. A decade later, Chris has become a success story. He is now thin, prosperous, is a hit with girls, and works as an executive in the music industry. His latest assignment is escorting wacky starlet/pop princess and ex-flame Samantha James (Anna Faris) to Paris, France. But their plane has to make an unscheduled landing in Jersey, Chris's high school home. Rationally, Chris and Samantha decide to stay at his old house. Chris has a reunion with his former buddies, including the winsome Jamie, who immediately rekindles that old spark within Chris. The remainder of the film concerns Chris's efforts to make Jamie see him as more than a friend, while simultaneously fending off the warped Samantha. Competition comes in the form of a former fellow nerd turned sensitive guy Dusty Dinkleman (Chris Klein).

Just Friends is a very funny, feel-good movie. Ryan Reynolds is a hoot as a brash L.A. stud who disastrously channels his inner dweeb whenever he's around unrequited love Jamie. Ryan is really excellent with physical comedy. There are scenes with him that are just uproarious (case in point, the aftermath of his politically incorrect hockey game with the kids). I even enjoyed his frequent Three Stooges encounters with his kid brother (Chris Marquette). And when he has to, Ryan steps outside the slapstick and layers in a deeper nuanced, more introspective performance. I ended up rooting for Chris, even though he was overly cocky and big-timed his home town folks. And then there's Amy Smart, who seemingly can do no wrong. There's just something so lovable and natural about her. She embodies the type of girl every guy would want to be with. Anna Faris's turn as the unstable Samantha adds to the already boisterous feel of the film. Samantha actually scares me. Chris Klein's Dusty, Chris's guitar-playing, song-writing rival, is disgustingly touchy-feely. One would wish that a different sort of arc for Dusty's character had been laid out; the script writer, in my eyes, sold out and made things too convenient for Chris, with regards to Dusty. Julie Hagerty (Airplane!) has a goofy supporting role as Chris's mom.

The special features are tasty:

- a filmmakers' film commentary
- "Tales from the Friend Zone" featurette (the cast & crew talk about real life "just friends" experiences)
- "Developing Just Friends" featurette (wherein we learn of the script's 7 year odyssey and how, originally, Chris didn't get the girl at the end)
- "A Director's Guide to Comedy" featurette
- "The Transformation" featurette (about Ryan's fat face make-up)
- "The Body Shake" featurette (the awkwardness of when you're dropping off a date; do you hug or kiss?)
- "It's Friggin' Cold" featurette (the cast & crew basically complaining about how cold the shooting was)
- "A Writer's Journey" featurette (focus on script writer Adam "Tex" Davis)
- "A Disaster in the Making" featurette (about the making of the Palomino house X-mas decor and its eventual fate)
- "The Reshoots" featurette (the making of the eventual ending of the film, which wasn't the original ending)
- a so-so blooper reel
- deleted scenes
- an alternate ending (this was the initially intended ending; you could see why they changed it)
- an amusing "Jamie Smiles" video
- theatrical trailer

So, try out this movie. It'll make you smile and laugh and even feel nostalgic because, let's face it: just like me, you've been in Chris's position before, too.

Movies don't need to be artsy, characters don't all need to be perfect, and actors don't need to be Oscar winners for you to enjoy a film. Just Friends, the new release starring Ryan Reynolds, Amy Smart, Christopher Marquette, and Chris Klein, is a suprisingly funny and enjoyable movie that is worth a rental for a fun evening.

Ryan Reynolds plays Chris Brander, the Van Wilder of the Hollywood music scene. He's attractive, cocky, and utterly appealing to the ladies, with a succesful career and more money than he knows what to do with. He latest task, signing pop star and ex-fling Samantha James (Anna Faris), who makes Ashlee Simpson look like a PhD candidate. Having fled New Jersey 10 years ago in humiliation, after a high school graduation night party gone Oh So Wrong, Chris is involuntarily dragged back to Jersey after a flight to Paris with Samantha is interrupted by a microwave explosion.(apparently Samantha never knew you didnt microwave tin foil) Chris brings her home to his spacy mother(Julie Haggerty) and his live-at-home brother Mikey. (Christopher Marquette, The Girl Next Door).

We discover that the current charmer used to be Jersey's biggest high school loser: fat, dorky and endlessly pining for his best friend, Jamie Pallomino (Amy Smart). Chris was the Mayor of the Friend Zone, and has lived his life trying to forget those days. Chris runs into Jamie at the local bar, where his old feelings resurface in a second. Pawning Samantha off onto his lust-filled brother, Chris pursues Jamie with renewed passion. Unfortunately, the old Chris still lurks beneath the new exterior, full of insecurity, love, clumsiness and self-doubt. Will he escape the Friend Zone and get the girl? Considering its Amy Smart, who never fails to make the audience fall in love with her, we certainly hope so. He does have competition though. Dusty Dinkelman (a very funny Chris Klein), a once former loser like Chris, has also returned to town with new looks and the ability to be charming sensitive guy, and he is also after Jamie.

There are moments of pure hilarity, some entertaining slapstick, and solid performances by Reynolds, Smart, Klein, Faris, and Marquette. The movie doesn't humiliate overweight people, and Reynolds brings a suprisingly vulnerable side to the flashback scenes. There are hysterical moments that don't fit the movie well, mostly with Faris parodying the pop-tarts of the moment, and at times the plot tries to incorporate too much, almost if a producer was reading the script and said, "we need more funny!" All in all though a good, funny, entertaining movie with a solid cast. Recommended.

This movie definitely turned out to be better than expected. I'd just seen "Waiting", which was decent, so I was interested to see what this Ryan Reynolds film would have to offer.

This movie had a much better storyline than did "Waiting..." It was very refreshing to see Ryan Reynolds play a character that wasn't Van Wilder-esque. He gives a very funny performance as the fat-kid turned Hollywood man-about-town who returns home and reconnects with the girl who broke his heart in his youth.

The movie is funny right off the starting line and remains funny throughout.

Recommended.

I didn't really like Waiting, another Ryan Reynolds film. So I was leery about this one, but my sister assured me that it was totally different, and boy, was she right. This one's in the romantic comedy category, but with an American Pie attitude, which makes for a very funny movie. And I've never liked Ryan Reynolds more.

Reynolds plays Chris, a guy who was fat and unpopular in high school, but had a really great friend (played by Amy Smart) who hung out with him and had sleepovers w/him. Unfortunately, he saw her as more than just a friend, but she didn't feel the same way at all. After an embarrassing moment at a grad party, he gets on his bike and rides away, saying, "This town if full of losers, and I'm pulling out to win!" Flash forward ten years-- Chris is now a total hottie with a body and has a flashy job in L.A. working for a record label. He has to escort the pop princess Samantha James (the hilarious Anna Faris) to Paris. But when their flight is grounded in Jersey because of an onboard fire (thanks to Samantha!), Chris heads back to his home to catch up with his mother and little brother, and maybe regain what he lost when he left-- the girl of his dreams. Throw in a wacky little brother (played by Chris Marquette, whom you will LOVE in this role!!!) and another cute guy (Chris Klein) and you've got some serious obstacles!

Such a funny movie, really good physical comedy on Reynolds' part, he really reminded me of Jim Carrey in this movie, especially in that car scene when he's lamenting over his crappy first "date" with Jamie. Reynolds and Marquette are hilarious together; man, brothers sure know how to push each others buttons. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

"Just Friends" is about truth. It's about known, universal, guaranteed truths that bridge all boundaries in America. Aside from the ending, which was completely and utterly ridiculous, the entire movie was factual. Here's what I learned (already knew):

1--It's proof of the Ladder Theory. All women have two ladders. One ladder is reserved for friends. The other ladder is reserved for men she would potentially date and/or have sex with. Once you are on the friend ladder, you can never move to the dating-love-sex ladder.
2--The massage-trick is almost universally known. Both men and women know that when a massage happens, and it is not performed by a licensed masseuse, there is more than likely some sex on the horizon.
3--Dorks, dweebs, nerds, and geeks will never, I repeat, NEVER, get the popular hot chick...unless he's a rich dork.
4--Every guy in high school that looked like Chris Klein was going to get the girl, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Added on to that is the fact that the same guy would inevitably treat the girl like a worthless whore, and he'd still keep getting the girls, despite the universal knowledge that he was a douche bag that would cheat on every girlfriend he had.
5--It's much harder to *ahem* seal the deal, when it's a woman you like immensely. Someone you are not interested in for anything other than the physical, well, that's a different story.
6--Fat guys lip-synching will always be funny.
7--It shows how shallow most women truly are. Sure, everyone wants to act like men are the kings of the world of shallowness; but in reality, women charge the king rent. She didn't want him when he was fat, but now that he's attractive and rich (the same as the C.Klein character), she practically throws herself at him.


Other things to be aware of while watching the movie:

1--This movie is proof that Amy Smart and Anna Farris are not the same person. They are in a scene together, thereby dispelling the rumors.
2--Most people who do everything considered nice, helpful, and philanthropic are probably doing all some of the activities with ulterior motives. The world is not all rainbows and butterflies; deal with it.
3--I'm sorry; but, in the real world, the ending of this movie will almost never happen. Sure, it happens on Lifetime (when men aren't being blamed for everything wrong with the world), and it occasionally happens on an E-Harmony commercial (although I can't prove the veracity of any of the ads), but it almost never actually happens.

A movie that most can relate to, Just Friends, brings to the screen the story of an overweight down-on-his-luck high school kid from N.J. who has a traumatic experience when his attempt at declaring his undying love to his beautiful and much more popular friend ends up a disaster. Subsequently he leaves town and heads west, where ten years later he is successful professionally as well as with the ladies. That is when fate brings him back home where things have not changed as much as he would have liked...
Ryan Reynolds, Amy Smart, and the rest of the cast carry out their performances well.
In short, the music is great, the acting is pretty good, the plot/setting is interesting, while the dialogues are pretty average and could have been better.
In a nutshell, it's probably not a movie you would want to add to your collection, but it will provide for an evening's entertainment.

I laughed so hard sometimes I couldn't stop. This is absolutely the best comedy of the last couple of years. Chris (Ryan Reynolds) was the quintessential nice guy, great friend all through high school with Jamie (the lovely Amy Smart). He was a bit overweight and the kids were kind of mean to him about it. Years pass and he comes back, lost the weight, in excellent shape, and has a career as a well known music exec. He's intent on winning Jamie this time. Enter Anna Faris (as a Britney Spears type, and really ditzy but in a hilarious way), and Chris Klein as a musician trying to win Jamie also. The sound and picture are great, this DVD has GREAT extras, and please let movie play all the way through so you can hear Anna singing "Forgiveness". I promise you'll be laughing.

Director Roger Kumble can't stop thinking about relationships. First he gives us Cruel Intentions 1 & 2, then the Sweetest Thing, and now we have Just Friends, another movie about relationships gone awry. If the first two films were about manipulating people for sex and the second was about manipulating them for love, this latest flick could be safely called a little of both.

Penned by Adam "Tex" Davis (this is the first thing he's written for the screen, unless you count the Made-For-TV "Spring Break Lawyer," which, uh, I don't), "Just Friends" is certainly having fun with itself, but it doesn't always have fun with the audience. Poor Chris, a fat-but-loveable high school loser, professes his love for his best friend, Jamie, only to have her turn him down with a platonic kiss, planted firmly in that "like a brother" area located in the middle of his chubby cheek. Ten years later, Chris has slimed down and toned up and now pursues and discards women with a personality that is as chiseled as his body. Working as a sly music executive, he finds himself accidentally stranded in his native New Jersey (thanks to a jet plane/microwave mishap) with another chance to win the heart (or at least the body) of his long-lost childhood chum.

Chris is played expertly by Ryan Reynolds doing what he does best: mixing wry attitude with well-acted emotion (his best scenes are when he's encased in rubber as the once-flabby Chris; Reynolds would do well to take more character roles, since he's starting to pigeonhole himself as The Witty Wiseacre). Reynolds is surrounded by a group of equally able co-stars who are strong in each of their roles: Amy Smart as the trophy gal, Jamie; the wonderfully over-the-top Anna Faris as a Christina Aguilera wanna-be named Samantha James; and Chris Klein (who seems to be making fun of every other dull-as-dirt character he's ever played) as the doe-eyed rival, Dusty Dinkleman. There are other notables here, too, including Stephen Root (Newsradio, Dodgeball) as Chris's boss and Julie Hagerty (Airplane!) as Chris's ditzy mother.

Ms. Hagerty's presence makes a lot of sense, especially since this film borrows heavily from a lot of its comedic ancestors, which not only include Zucker and Abrahams, but also the Three Stooges (see: Chris's slap-heavy relationship with his younger brother -- the only thing that's missing there are "nyuks" and eye pokes) and the National Lampoon's series (see: the various pratfalls and even a humorously obliterated Christmas panorama).

A lot of this is remarkably well done and truly funny stuff (for those fans of the style), but it also seems crammed together in a clumsy attempt to distract from the shallow and confused script. You don't ask much from a movie like this, but you do expect a little heart, a little warmth, or -- more importantly -- a little sense. Unfortunately, not much of this movie seems very relatable or plausible, which wouldn't be so bad if the film didn't pretend so hard that it was both. As a result, Chris's pursuit of Jamie, although it is the main premise, actually feels tacked on, and both characters, in spite of their believability as real people, are still very hard to understand and connect with.

Your best bet, if you watch this film, is just to watch it. People get electrocuted, dropped off balconies, and very few groins are spared. Reynolds hams it up, mugs with panache, and takes all of the abuse with classy straight-man style. Even the final credits roll over a souped-up version of Samantha James' song, "Forgiveness," a pretty funny send-up of bubble-gum pop ("To forgive is divine/so let's have a glass of wine/and have make-up sex/until the end of time"). Ultimately, if you can remove yourself from the movie as much as it removes itself from you, you'll probably enjoy the experience.

(This DVD comes with the usual voice-over commentary -- which is actually pretty banal considering the subject matter, some deleted scenes, a lot of stuff about the making-of -- including Ryan's transformation into a fat high school kid, a set of blooper clips -- always a favorite, and an alternate ending that is obviously alternate for a reason. A good collection for those of you who like a lot of bonus material. NOTE: some sites say that there are Easter Eggs on this disc, but I haven't found them.)

I was literally rolling on the floor laughing at this movie. It is hysterical to Nth degree. Ryan Reynolds is brilliant as always.

Amy Smart plays the girl Reynolds has been pining over since High School, when he was over weight and trapped in the "friends" category. Due to shaming and ridicule, Reynolds leaves New Jersey, his home, and heads to LA where he loses weight and becomes a high powered record exec.

Needing a star, the record company Reynolds works for, or rather his boss (brilliantly played by Stephen Root), has pegged Anna Farris to be the next Big One. And like so many stars today, Farris turns out to be a no-talent, annoying, hack in the movie - think Paris Hilton (in real life I think Anna is a great actress).

Instructed to stay by their new star's side, Reynolds soon finds himself stranded back home in New Jersey where he of course runs back into Smart. Bascially hillarity ensures and you will have to stop the movie at times due to fits of laughter.

One of the funniest movies I've ever seen, this is truly a must own.

A romantic comedy with a modest budget, the box office for "Just Friends" surpassed expectations when it grossed a surprising $32.5 million domestically and that is no doubt due to its star talent. With Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris and Chris Klein headlining the cast, people going into "Just Friends" will get laughs aplenty with room to spare for a few genuinely touching moments.

Chris Brander (Reynolds) is a lovable teenaged dweeb - shy, overweight and head-over-heels in love with his best friend Jamie Palamino (Smart), a girl from the popular crowd. No longer able to bottle his feelings, he confesses his love but gets the rejection he feared while being mortified in the process. Deciding that he will no longer be a suffering fool, he retreats on his bicycle, determined to make something of himself.

Fast forward ten years and Chris is several pounds lighter, a successful record producer in Los Angeles and a real ladies' man who has broken more hearts than can be counted. Though he lives the life of which every bachelor dreams, Chris's unrequited love has made him a cynic and a womanizer. His just-desserts for his chauvinistic behavior come in the form of rising pop star and manic ex-girlfriend Samantha James (Faris), a singer that he is ordered to recruit for the record label for which he works. Jumping his bones the moment she sees him, Samantha suggests an impromptu trip to Paris but by a strange twist of fate they end up in Chris's home state of New Jersey and he decides to visit his family for the holidays.

While trying to keep the psychotic and high-maintenance Samantha occupied, Chris looks up Jamie and much to his delight, she is still beautiful and still single. Resentful for having been kept in the "friend zone" all those years, he hatches a grand plan to take advantage of her but he doesn't count on falling in love with her all over again.

He also doesn't count on some fierce competition in the form of Dusty Dinkleman (Klein), another shy and stuttering nerd who was also infatuated with Jamie. Now a confident and handsome part-time EMT who is positively enchanting on the guitar, Dusty pulls out all the stops to win her over and in the process reveals that he doesn't have the best intentions. A farcical war develops between the two men, one that has both of them cleverly disguising their own agendas while fighting the urge to expose the other (lest they expose themselves in the process).

Though an inexperienced screenwriter, Adam "Tex" David's screenplay gets many laughs from its even-handed sarcasm and slapstick as well as the superb execution of the film's skilled comedic actors. Ryan Reynolds is no stranger to comedies - with the starring role in 2004's "Van Wilder" as well as the portrayal of another womanizer in 2005's "Waiting" (also opposite Anna Faris), his delivery and facial expression are dynamite. Klein, another comedic film veteran (Election, American Pie), impresses with his ability to cut loose and be absolutely insane as Dusty, a man whose ulterior motives become all too clear towards the end.

Both of them are almost overshadowed by Anna Faris, a comedic actress made famous by her starring role in the Wayans brothers' "Scary Movie" trilogy. Faris is insanely funny as Samantha James, a ditzy and petulant celebrity who is sickly sweet one moment, horny another and then flying off the handle the next.

Amy Smart tends to play the straight role in comedies whilst everyone else has all the fun and she does it again here as Jamie; despite being the only serious performance in the movie, she still holds her own next to Reynolds and Faris.

Bottom line: Replete with an even mix of physical comedy as well as a good dose of wry humor, "Just Friends" will procure many chuckles from its keen writing, direction and performances.