I missed the 80s retro-themed comedy Take Me Home Tonight when it was released to theater earlier this year.  It was one of those films that I meant to see but then it ended up spending such a short time in theaters that I just never got the chance.  A few days ago, via OnDemand, I finally got a chance to see Take Me Home Tonight in the comfort of my own bedroom.

Plotwise, Take Me Home Tonight feels like a cinematic Frankenstein monster, stitched together from elements from all those old school 80s comedies.  Therefore, it’s appropriate that the film itself is set in 1988.  Matt (Topher Grace) is a recent graduate from M.I.T. who is spending his post-graduate life working at Suncoast Video.  One day, while at work, he happens to run into Tori (Teresa Palmer), his high school crush.  When Tori asks Matt what he’s doing with his life post-high school, Matt quickly replies that he’s working at Goldman Sachs.  Tori then invites Matt to attend a weekend party being held by Kyle Masterson (Chris Pratt), a vaguely insane frat boy type who also happens to be the boyfriend of Matt’s twin sister, Wendy (Anna Faris).  In typical 80s comedy fashion, this leads to Matt and his friend Barry (Dan Folger) stealing a car, coming across a secret stash of cocaine, destroying a suburban neighborhood with a big metal ball, and eventually coming to several heart-warming (but not too heart-warming) conclusions about what they want out of life and what the future holds.

For a film like this to work, you have to care about the characters enough to be willing to stick with them even though they spend the majority of the film acting like complete morons.  Fortunately, the film is very well-cast with nice supporting turns from Folger, Faris, and Michael Biehn (who plays Matt’s father and who gets a great scene where he “arrests” his own son).  Folger is especially good, bringing a hilarious intensity to a familiar role.  From the minute that little baggie of cocaine first shows up on-screen, you know that Folger’s going to end up with a white powder all over his face.  What you don’t expect is just how hilarious a committed comic performer can make even the most familiar of comedic developments.  Dan Folger rubs cocaine on his teeth as if the world depended upon it. 

However, the film really belongs to Topher Grace (who not only stars in but also co-produced and co-wrote the film).  Now, I have to admit that when I was much younger, I used to love That 70s Show and I had the biggest crush on Topher Grace.  (I had an even bigger crush on Danny Masterson but that’s another story.)   As this film was apparently put together by many of the same people who were involved with That 70s Show, it’s not surprising that Take Me Home Tonight almost feels like it could be a sequel to that show.  Much as he did in That 70s Show, Grace provides the anchor here, keeping the film grounded (at times just barely) in reality.  It seems like whenever I see Topher Grace in the movies, he’s always playing some sort of psycho.  So, it was nice to see him back to doing what he does best, playing the sympathetic everyman who spends every day walking the fine line between cool and awkward. 

When Take Me Home Tonight was released in theaters earlier this year, it was greeted with mediocre reviews and poor box office.  But you know what?  It’s really not that bad of a film.  Yes, the plot is predictable and the jokes are more warmly amusing than laugh-out-loud funny.  However, this film is predictable in much the same way a funny but oft-told joke is predictable.  Take Me Home Tonight is a case where familiarity breeds not contempt but comfort.  It’s a type of comfort that’s probably better suited for being watched on a television while multi-tasking as opposed to being seen on the big screen with no other distractions.  Seriously, if Take Me Home Tonight was a weekly sitcom, it would probably end up getting nominated for all sorts of Emmys.