MOVIE: Late Night isn’t worth staying up

SOME weeks are better than others at the movies. This time out you may just have to pick the best of a bad lot, limit your losses and quit while the going is good, if that’s not too many cliches in one sentence. 

First up is ‘Late Night’, a “comedy” from the apparently funny Mindy Kaling, who on the basis of this effort, hasn’t an amusing bone in her body. The film tells the story of American chat show host Katherine Newbury (why are there no female late night presenters by the way?) played by Emma Thompson, whose show is on the rocks due to poor ratings. 

Newbury who employs an all male writers’ room, decides to shake things up a little and hire a female – enter Mindy Kaling to save the day.

The main issue with this movie, and there are quite a few, is that it’s simply not funny. Newbury is an awful host who in reality would have been fired years ago, but who refuses to stand down. 

Of course, the real world doesn’t work like that, and all shows are at the mercy of their ratings. 

The all male writers’ room is a thing of the past, male characters are portrayed as stupid, and the story seems to be complaining about a situation that existed 20 years ago. 

At one point Thompson’s character even says: “Why would things be fair for me, I’m a woman”. Well, you’re a millionaire celebrity hosting a major late night chat show, what’s unfair about that? So yes, let’s have a female late night chat show host, just not this one.

Two other films recently released are ‘Ma’ and ‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters’. 

‘Ma’ stars Octavia Spencer as an unhinged veterinary assistant who encourages teens to party in her basement. It’s bonkers, but don’t take it too seriously and some fun can be extracted from this scare fest. 

‘Godzilla’ on the other hand is god-awfully bad, you get to see the repugnant reptile for about 10 minutes, with the rest of the time crammed with cheesy one liners. There’s always next week!

Paul O’Rourke