I Love You, Man is a
hilarious (and somewhat raunchy) movie starring Paul Rudd, Jason Segal and Rashida Jones is an interesting twist on the summer “buddy” movie, with Rudd playing Peter Klaven, a sensitive real estate agent who realizes after getting engaged to his girlfriend Zooey (Jones) that he has no close male friends to ask to be his best man or groomsmen. On the advice of his mother and brother, he sets out on a series of “man dates” trying to find a guy to be friends with.

Written and directed by John Hamburg (Along Came Polly),  I Love You Man has a terrific ensemble cast that also includes Andy Samberg (SNL) as Peter’s gym trainer brother Robbie, Jane Curtin (also from SNL) as his Mom, J.K. Simmons (Juno) as his Dad, Jaime Pressly (My Name Is Earl) as Zooey’s friend and Jon Favreau (director of Iron Man) as her husband, and Lou Ferrigno as himself.  With this much talent, Hamburg pretty much just had to turn the camera on and GO.  I recommend listening to the commentary during a viewing for some great insights into how the scenes were filmed.

Paul Rudd and Jason Segal take their characters right through the awkward first meeting stage to quickly become very fond of each other, and yet there’s still an undercurrent of hesitation. Is it okay for men to admit that they care for each other? Can they  say “I Love You” to each other? This movie might be a comedy, but it tackles the deeper issues within the plot with great skill.

This is NOT A MOVIE FOR KIDS. There are but a handful of scenes that children of any age should watch.  If you liked movies like “Knocked Up” and “Superbad”, you’ll probably like “I Love You Man”.  I recommend picking it up to watch this weekend, it’s available on standard DVD and on Blu-Ray. Oh, and you definitely want to watch the bonus features, especially the deleted scenes, like this one:

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