Walk of Shame

Following my enjoyment of The Other Woman, I decided to go see Walk of Shame, thinking that maybe I could get something as near to the former movie. After all, it's Elizabeth Banks and James Marsden, so what could go wrong? Apparently, everything, as Walk of Shame is a thinly based movie that tries to stretch its premise to absolute proportions that everything else gets forced in just for the movie to make some sense. Undeniably, one of the worst releases I've seen this year. 

Walk of Shame follows Meghan Miles, a journalist who has always been on the straight side of things. She's up for a job at a well-known network, and has sold herself for being reliable and a safe bet, having no bones or skeletons hidden in her closet. We meet her again at what could be the worst day of her life: not only has her fiancé left her, but she was passed over for the job. So she did what any depressed lady would do: get out and drink - a lot. What happens to her is a series of misadventures when she wakes up in a stranger's house after their night together, and finds out she's going to get the job if the network people are impressed with her performance during the news hour. 

Ever since the boom of female comedians dominating the screen, there were some good movies, some stuck in limbo and some really bad ones. Despite my fondness for Elizabeth Banks and James Marsden (who should be a veteran of these things by now), this was just an absolute mess. The plot was very thinned out, and what could have been solved by common sense just didn't apply. The movie's not even trying to make some sense. The 'comedy' part of the movie was really forced - from the characters, to the script, and to the whole absurdity of it. 

Banks had a couple of people to back her up, but the movie felt like a really bad one-woman show. The writers tried to interject some comedic parts to her friends, played dryly and awkwardly by Gillian Jacobs and Sarah Wright, but it just doesn't work. James Marsden could have been better used here. The man is charismatic, but he's not even trying here. He had this one great scene in the beginning, and was sooner relegated to a wallflower character while Jacobs and Wright take the helm in finding their missing friend. There were other supporting characters, like the boys from the hood - I did like how they kept calling her "bitch from tv", although that was overused, and the police men whose entry to the movie makes absolutely no sense. Even the writers tried to make them funny, but to no avail. 

There was this one scene I did like though, the freeway scene. I thought it looked like it was taken from a game, and I liked the wide angle of the shot. Besides that, the entire production fell flat. Was this the worst movie I've seen this year? Maybe? But it's definitely on the bottom of my list. 

Final Word: Just…awful.

Cast: Elizabeth Banks, James Marsden, Gillian Jacobs

Director: Steven Brill

Year: 2014