“Thank God for Holbrooke” is a line that one character says near the middle of Date Night. With all of the humorous dialogue that is said throughout, this one line stands out for me as the most memorable. It’s not even a funny line, but it almost perfectly sums up my thoughts about the film, and I believe that’s why it stuck with me after I finished watching it.

Holbrooke Grant (Mark Wahlberg) is a character that appears in only a few scenes throughout the movie. He is someone who never puts on a shirt, is adored by any females that cross his path, and is played completely straight, no matter what is going on around him and regardless of what other characters are saying to him. He’s on-screen maybe 10 minutes total of the entire film. He is, unfortunately, the best part of Date Night.

Our leads are less interesting and less fun to be around. They are a married couple with names that I can’t even recall. They are played by Steve Carell and Tina Fey. The couple decides to take the reservations of a different couple at a fancy restaurant, unaware that in doing so, they are about to embark on an adventure. The reservations they took are those of thieves, and while eating dinner, Tina and Steve are asked to go outside by a couple of men. These men have guns, and politely inquire the whereabouts of a flash drive that the real couple stole.

The majority of the film has Steve and Tina’s characters on the run from these two men. There is a long car chase, a lot of running and a couple of moments where the characters stop to discuss marital problems. There are a few lines of dialogue that will make you snicker, but nothing that is laugh-out-loud funny. The few cameos sprinkled sparingly throughout end up being the primary reason to keep watching Date Night after the plot gets underway.

And…oh yeah! Mila Kunis and James Franco appear at one point. They are there for one scene, but it’s definitely something worth noting, because it occurs after one of the most boring scenes of the film, in which our leads talk about how they are overworked, and how Steve doesn’t help Tina around the house, even though he wants to be given a chance. And that takes about three minutes, making the pacing seem uneven. There are a couple of other moments where nothing much is going on, and none of it is funny.

If there is one big problem that Date Night has, it’s the lack of humor throughout. I know I mentioned this earlier, but I don’t think it can be stressed enough: Comedies need to be funny in order to be successful. Date Night isn’t that funny. I’ve watched dramas with more humor than this film has. I’ve even seen some horror films with one-liners that made me laugh harder than the ones here did.

To top it all off, Date Night feels much, much longer than it actually is. The film is only 88 minutes long, but feels at least 30 minutes longer than that. (And for those wondering: No, I didn’t watch the “Extended Edition”). This may be partly due to its pacing problems, or it might just be because I was bored for a large part of it, but the point still stands that it felt too long. If it was funnier, yeah, maybe it could have lasted longer. I would have wanted to see more from these characters, especially if they were endearing or funny, but they aren’t.

There’s one scene in particular in which Fey dresses up like a stripper, and Carell plays her pimp. They go inside a strip club and they dance a little. I was disappointed with this scene, and it occurs near the end of the film. I wanted to turn it off, but I didn’t in hopes that it would get better. This scene lasted too long, just like the entire movie, and ended up being pointless in regards to the film’s finale anyway. It’s like it was thrown in there just for some cringe humor, except it was missing the “humor” part.

At least the acting was okay. Steve Carell and Tina Fey seem to know how to play these characters, maybe because they aren’t much different from themselves, I’m not sure. They treat each situation they encounter like a real couple likely would, and this at least means we can sympathize with them. We still won’t care much for them, but we can think about how we would act if we were faced with a potential life or death scenario. In retrospect, thinking about how I would handle being in their position was more enjoyable than actually watching the film.

Date Night isn’t really worth watching. At 88 minutes, it’s overlong, suffers from pacing problems and isn’t very funny. The cast is good, and the cameos throughout are almost good enough to keep you engaged, but sadly, it doesn’t succeed in being an entertaining film. Carell and Fey have good enough chemistry together though, and given a better project, I could definitely see them having a successful comedy on their hands.