WALK OF SHAME (2014) REVIEW

So due to lack of better judgement, and being stuck in bed with flu, I decided to watch this film, I thought it would be easy to watch. How wrong I was. Elizabeth Banks stars as a news reporter Meghan Miles who gets dumped and then decides to have a rare night out, this leads to her meeting bar tender Gordon played by James Marsden. They end up spending the night together. All good so far? Well no. 

Meghan wakes up realising she needs to get to work urgently to get a big promotion. And of course, in pure 'oh would you believe it' fashion, everything goes wrong. Her car gets towed, a cat tries to attack her, she has no money, or phone, she looses her shoes, has a fight with a taxi driver, ends up in the hood, deals crack (YES that is a real scene) and the police are mistake her for a hooker, which leads to her being on the run. The scenarios are ludicrous and just, humourless. 

There are stereotypes a plenty, verging on being racist and down right insulting to everyone involved. It never shows any self awareness, which I think maybe could have helped, it just drags on, the 1 hour 35 run time honestly feels like 4. The characters feel hollow and unlikeable. The role is plain degrading to Banks and I still struggle to imagine her reading this script thinking, 'hey this sounds like a good idea!' Banks has proved herself in the past to be a massive talent, she is funny and smart. I love her work in the Hunger Games, and various other comedies and dramas. But here she is wasted, and object to laugh at, not with. 

Then there's the final speech - it made my toes curl. For the whole film, we are meant to be laughing at Banks getting wrongly accused of being a hooker so her speech at the end, shaming the people in the film who did exactly that is just mind boggling? James Marsden is billed as second top billed but he only has about 3 lines? So disappointed and I wasn't expecting a lot to begin with! Even Banks can't save this sloppy mess. 2/10