Playing it Cool ★★★
CHRIS Evans needs to make more than just Marvel movies.
By my count, in the last decade he’s made 10 of them and has another two underway.
That doesn’t leave much time for anything else and you assume the franchise would also rather his persona remains close to that of Captain America at all times.
I liked him in The Iceman in 2012 and Snowpiercer in 2013 and it’s refreshing to see him in a romantic comedy like Playing it Cool (2014), especially opposite another pleasant screen presence in Michelle Monaghan.
The latter has made more than 30 films but many people struggle to put a face to the name. While she’s a good, versatile actress many of the roles she has chosen in the past haven’t been showy, challenging or impactful.
You see that again in the poster for Playing it Cool. Unlike most rom-coms, Evans is front and centre and Monaghan is amongst the supports even though she actually features much more.
Evans plays a writer who wants to produce action films but is forced to bide his time with a rom-com. In his personal life, Evans’ character has never been able to hold down a relationship and struggles to understand the basic concept of true love.
At a fund-raiser he meets Monaghan’s fiesty, intelligent and funny character and is immediately besotted. After discovering she has a boyfriend he initially backs off but then decides to go for broke.
And so it goes, following a fairly standard story but with enough attitude in the script and characters and inventiveness in moving the narrative along to make it pretty enjoyable.
The script does feel a little over-written at times, sometimes trying too hard to be a hip Los-Angeles comedy full of quirky characters. There is a scene where Evan’s character’s friends are introduced at a gun range which I think is supposed to be making a point about gun culture but doesn’t work at all.
In contrast, all the scenes between Evans and Monaghan work quite naturally and you enjoy seeing their relationship develop.
The same year this film was released, a second rom-com, Before We Go, written by the same two men and again starring Evans came out. Evans also directed that one and it received good reviews so may also be worth a watch.