An unoriginal plot with clichés throughout are forgiven in what is ultimately a feel-good comedy. Bateman and Reynolds have great chemistry, and whilst not groundbreaking, a funny film.
The Change-Up
2011
Action / Comedy / Fantasy
The Change-Up
2011
Action / Comedy / Fantasy
Plot summary
Growing up together, Mitch (Ryan Reynolds) and Dave (Jason Bateman) were inseparable best friends, but as the years have passed they've slowly drifted apart. While Dave is an overworked lawyer, husband and father of three, Mitch has remained a single, quasi-employed man-child who has never met a responsibility he liked. To Mitch, Dave has it all: beautiful wife Jamie (Leslie Mann),kids who adore him and a high-paying job at a prestigious law firm. To Dave, living Mitch's stress-free life without obligation or consequence would be a dream come true. Following a drunken night out together, Mitch and Dave's worlds are turned upside down when they wake up in each other's bodies and proceed to freak out. Despite the freedom from their normal routines and habits, the guys soon discover that each other's lives are nowhere near as rosy as they once seemed. Further complicating matters are Dave's sexy legal associate, Sabrina (Olivia Wilde) and Mitch's estranged father (Alan Arkin). With time not on their side, Mitch and Dave comically struggle to avoid completely destroying each other's lives before they can find a way to get their old ones back.
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18+ Freaky Friday
Living the fast life
Dave (Jason Bateman) is a corporate lawyer working his way up to partnership and a devoted family man. Mitch (Ryan Reynolds) is a womanising stoner who appears in soft core movies and is distant from his father who is re-marrying.
Both envy each other's lifestyles and after peeing in a fountain they body swap.
Now Mitch inside Dave's body finds that being a corporate lawyer working on a big merger is no fun while also doing chores for the kids and keeping a wife happy after she has had a Thai meal which gives her the runs.
Dave now living Mitch's life finds out that making soft core films is no fun nor is trying to have sex with an extremely pregnant woman.
The film has a lot of gross out humour and nudity. A baby crapping on Bateman's face for example. It mixes the body swap premise popular in the 1980s with the crude humour from The Hangover type of films.
However despite Reynolds and Bateman having a nice chemistry the film is formulaic despite the rudeness and not really funny.
A Longing For The Other One's Life
Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman play a pair of friends who get their minds rerouted into each other's bodies and now have to deal with how the other half lives. As is the case in these kinds of films it's not so easy living another's life no matter how well you think you know the other person.
Especially with these two. Bateman works for a white shoe Atlanta law firm and these guys look more at home on Wall Street than Peachtree Street. In fact that's one of the more interesting things in The Change-Up. I swear but I did not hear one accent that sounded like it came from Georgia. Bateman is explained somewhat that he was educated in the Ivy League and clerked for Justice David Souter. Then again so was Ben Matlock similarly educated. Bateman is married with wife Leslie Mann and he's all about career.
Reynolds is an ace screw up, he's on the latest of many careers, he's now doing soft core porn although he says he's an actor. These two guys truly should have drifted apart.
But after a night of merriment and carousing the two feel the need to bleed the old lizard and both express a longing for the other one's life. And then the Grecian goddess statue of the fountain they're relieving themselves grants the wish.
If you saw Walt Disney Studios Freaky Friday you know exactly what's going to happen here. The only difference here is that we have some more adult situations than Disney Studios would have in their pictures.
Reynolds and Bateman work hard, but this is all very tired material.