• Ethan

Irresistible: Political satire that is both funny and sincere with Steve Carell at its heart

Updated: Oct 18, 2020

Irresistible is a comedic satire that made both an unfeigned story line and witty political jokes to captivate audiences (at home) all around the world. In Irresistible, Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell) plays a democratic politician who will stop at nothing to get his party into political power. When Gary sees a viral video of a man by the name of Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper) from a small conservative town fighting for democratic beliefs, he sees the opportunity to turn the town democratic by getting Jack to run for mayor. The small town reluctantly agrees with Gary's plan, but there's one thing standing in his way--his republican politician opponent Faith Brewster (Rose Byrne). Two sides clash, but only one will come out victorious...or so they hope. I'm not even going to lie about this when I say that I stumbled upon this movie by complete accident, which to my surprise, turned out better than I thought. First off, the acting. The acting was amazing as Steve Carell and Rose Byrne (both seasoned comedy film actors) were at their best as jokes were said perfectly and different moods, emotions, and expressions were used in the right context at the correct time. Second, the script was phenomenal. The jokes had me laughing the entire time, and some of the themes made the movie all the more hilarious! Jokes aside, my favorite aspect was how the writers and directors, although clearly coming from a democratic standpoint, managed to keep the script and jokes very neutral and very realistic. Having a movie like this that makes fun of politics is always good to keep neutral just so no one gets offended. The overall concept of the film was an excellent idea that had a twist that I was not at all expecting, making the movie come across a lot better than it looked with that element of surprise. I really think the critics misjudged the movie entirely, as it only ended up getting a whopping 43%. For a great comedy, it seemed that the reviews were lackluster and critics just saw the film as yet another political movie. Irresistible got an R rating for language used frequently (f*ck, a**hole, damn, douche bag, sh*t, d**k, and p***y) and some sexual content (some sexual jokes; crude sexual humor used in one specific scene played for laughs. One couple kisses). The film is generally okay for anyone 13 and up, but a 12 year old child could watch this with an adult (children younger than 12 are usually not interested in the subject matter, and some parents might not want their children hearing all the swearing). I give Irresistible 4 out of 5 stars for having excellent political humor and being a great laugh, but it did have "extra" scenes that could have easily been taken out while keeping the film the exact same.

Signing off,


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