Run Fat Boy Run – Jonathan Parker

This one’s a marathon of mediocrity.

A down-on-his-luck security guard decides to run a marathon to prove his worth to his ex-fiancée in the run-of-the-mill comedy Run Fat Boy Run. Brit star and co-screenwriter Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) is likeable enough, but the material is tired and unfunny.

Pegg plays Dennis, who we first meet as he was about to wed beautiful and pregnant bride Libby (Thandie Newton). Dennis got cold feet and ran, leaving his bride blushing at the altar. Flash forward to today: Not surprisingly, Dennis has made little of his life toiling away in ignominy as a security guard at a London lingerie shop and barely able to pay the rent on his basement apartment. Meanwhile, Libby is successful and being courted by handsome financial wiz Whit (Hank Azaria). Dennis sees Whit’s courtship as stealing his wife and school-aged son. Whit goads Dennis into doing something he has never done in his life: exercise. Next thing Dennis knows, he has decided to run a marathon to prove himself.

As the movie harmlessly begins, it’s hard not to give it the benefit of the doubt. Pegg seems clever, and Dylan Moran is especially enjoyable as Dennis’s reprobate best friend Gordon. Between the two of them, we want to like this movie; so we sit hopefully along. But nothing interesting — or for the most part funny — ever happens. Our sad sack protagonist is likeable (if not unoriginal), so we cheer for him. Our too-perfect antagonist is a cad, so we boo him. Our female lead is a cardboard cutout with nothing to say or do, so we do nothing in regards to her.

Unlike Pegg’s other efforts, where he has turned the familiar onto its head, this is just familiar after familiar after familiar. Director David Schwimmer (he of Friends cast fame) has to take a lot of the blame. Yes, the material is weak, but it’s the director’s job to recognize that everything going on is flat and not funny. Plus, Schwimmer has this unusual talent of framing his shots so that the tops of people’s heads are cut off.

Still, all is not lost thanks to Pegg and Moran. When they are on the screen together, things seem to work — though they are not on the screen together enough. As for the rest of it, you can assume what happens. Probably better to stay at home assuming than to sit though this marathon of mediocrity.

Fair comedy • PG-13 • 95 mins.