Man About Town

Sometimes the business world makes your love frozen. In a society where the prestige and the money seems to be more important than relationships, "trust" becomes just another word of the dictionary. Stress takes the control of your life; and without warning you stop living, to start acting in automatic pilot. And that is the case of Jack Giamoro (Ben Affleck) a well recognized and very successful executive in the Hollywood industry; who in his routine tries to find safety in isolating himself. His ammo ironically turns into his wickedness when everything starts falling apart, and he decides to write his personal diary. His life, his pain, his loneliness and secrets in paper, put him in danger when someone steals his written memories. A good romantic comedy, with the excellent performance of John "the actor" Cleese and the always beautiful Rebecca Romijn. It makes you laugh, it makes you fall in love, it makes you stop and look around. What's important in life? I say: A great choice for a date.

I liked the movie. Ben was funny and Rebecca Romijn lovely and attractive. The characters they portrayed were real and convincing. But the movie contained more drama than comedy. A few times I laughed, but overall this movie had a serious message about how to cope with people's imperfection (and your own). Psychological themed movies often are presented as a comedy. Hence the casting of John Cleese, the neurotic eminently. The movie is a nice distraction, and some people may learn from it.

To start, Im a bit biased when it comes to Afflecks limited acting abilities. In Good Will Hunting he didn't come up to scratch, in Gigli he was a complete disaster, much like the entire Gigli movie, a train wreck.

Watching to see how much worse he could be I was impressed from the start, his voice and acting has improved but not by much. The movie is above average, hence my 6.

Affleck must have worked a fair bit to get his acting up to a decent level and it shows here. John Cleese had me amused from the start with a 3 minute lecture for his class (which was most likely scheduled for at least a 40 minute session), Romjin (Affleck's wife here) is his wife, making Ben's marriage and his almost workahlic lifestyle problematic.

Ben's character here is similar to other roles he has tried to play, where he thinks he's better than everyone around him (which is irritating), his manner is the same, his tone of voice doesn't change where required (if at all), nor does how he expresses his character which seems to be the same as other movies he's starred.

There is definitely an improvement in his acting for this film, I will be hoping for more in his next role.

My expectations for this movie were pretty low. Ben Affleck's resume is very much hit and miss, with the misses being sometimes being of epic proportion. As well, I had seen two recent movies by director Mike Bender (Upside of Anger and Reign over Me) which certainly did not live up to praises and high ratings they received. It was thus with skepticism that I decided to kill time watching Man About Town, expecting a total dud. I was proved wrong.

Much like its successor Reign Over Me, the main character here is going through issues and everything is rather organic and poignantly directed, contrary to the usual remote third person view employed in "safer" Hollywood work. There are some light comedic moments here but what makes them work is how human and heartfelt the struggles are depicted. And while Ben Affleck will never be the second coming of a Ed Norton or Anthony Hopkins, here he gives a very honest and balanced performance and we cannot help but sympathize with this character caught in the artificial life of Los Angeles and talent agencies.

If anything, one plot tread about his book takes perhaps too much importance in what is otherwise a sober treatment of character and the issues he has to deal with in his personal and professional life. The entire cast is extremely good and was well chosen, although it does feel like they could have done more with John Cleese. One exception: I really felt Bai Ling was off in her performance.

Overall, this is a very enjoyable movie with a satisfying conclusion instead of the usual eye-rolling fest with the easy way out.

I never thought much about Ben Affleck until I saw him in "Hollywoodland". He was remarkable in that film, so when I saw "Man About Town" on cable, I decided to watch it. I've never been more surprised in my life. It's a good movie - not mind-blowing, but fun to watch. However, there is a situation in the film involving Ben's teeth that qualifies as one of the funniest things I have ever seen on film...or maybe it's just me. Nevertheless, I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard at anything in a movie. Affleck was hilarious...and the writing was priceless. As I said, maybe it was just me...or perhaps it was the wine (nah!), but I say watch it for yourself and see what happens.