The 40 Year Old Virgin: Steve Carell has his leading man cherry popped
movies.yahoo.comAfter stealing the show in both “Bruce Almighty” and “Anchorman,” Steve Carell has finally been given the chance to see if he can successfully be the star of a movie. As Andy Stitzer, Carell plays a sweet, geeky electronics store worker who has a large collection of action figures, watches “Survivor” with his elderly neighbor, and has never had sex, despite the fact that he is 40 years old (if you were unable to figure that out from the almost riddle-like title). Andy is not a virgin for religious reasons but rather had a series of setbacks in his youth, and as time marched on he just gave up on all aspects of his love life. After being asked to join a poker game by some fellow employees (Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, and Seth Rogen), the guys discover that Andy is still a virgin and make it their goal in life to get him a girl and some action, although not necessarily in that order.
Fortunately for Steve Carell, the character he plays is both likeable and not a one note joke like his most recent forays, i.e. the smarmy anchor or the mentally handicapped weather man. Catherine Keener also puts in a good performance as she usually does. Seth Rogen is definitely the funniest member of Andy’s buddies, as Paul Rudd has a very middling performance playing a pretty uninteresting character.
The movie is sweet at times, but also manages to be one of the raunchiest movies since “There’s Something About Mary.” The ways in which the movie punishes the sincere, mild Andy are some of the most painful and yet funniest moments ever committed to film. The movie also has some of the most horribly awkward moments this side of the answering machine scene in “Swingers.” The movie vacillates between raunchy sex romp, buddy film, and romantic comedy with each part managing to do well, but it makes the film seem a bit disjointed at times.
“The 40 Year Old Virgin” is the funniest and possibly dirtiest movie of the year, narrowly edging out the also hilarious and coarse “Wedding Crashers,” but in the end, also manages to have a lot of heart.
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