Why Him? is a film that comes directed by John Hamburg and stars James Franco, Zoey Deutch and Bryan Cranston. Why Him? is a film about a family being introduced to their young daughter’s newest boyfriend, who is a silicon valley millionaire and is about to ask her the big question. But the question is though, can he get the parents to like him enough?
As a comedy film, this one isn’t so bad. There’s quite a few laughs in there and it had quite a few people in the screening I was in laughing pretty loudly and I have to admit I found myself laughing quite a few times as well.
All the actors have quite good comedic timing, which I think was lacking in some recent comedies such as Keeping Up With The Joneses (read review). Bryan Cranston is well known for his comedic role in Malcolm In The Middle and does his best with this film, although I feel as if possibly they could have cast someone else and maybe they would have been better at it for some reason, but he was good enough. James Franco is the main focus in this film and he’s a comedy film veteran now, he’s always great and is the most enjoyable one to watch of the lot. Zoey Deutch however seems to be a bit sidelined in this, she’s got some scenes, but strangely not too many. The rest of the cast is pretty forgettable though.
Director John Hamburg has done well enough with this film. The pacing is quite good and things don’t really get boring at all, that is until the end. For some reason it seems that the story at the end becomes a bit stretched out, the run time of this is 1 hour and 51 minutes, but I feel that it could have been just a 90 minute comedy. If it wasn’t for the ending which felt a little long, I probably would have thought it was pretty good, although it’s not a bad film to watch.
Overall Why Him? is a film you should go out and see if you’re looking for something a little light to watch this week and also something that’s funny. As one of the few comedies in the cinema at the moment and also looking back at the comedies that were released this year, this one certainly isn’t the worst one and is sort of nearer to the side of the better of the bunch. James Franco will take care of you in this, if you’re a fan of his then you’ll probably enjoy it, same goes I guess for the Bryan Cranston people as well.
