Product Description

Back in high school, Chris (Reynolds) was an overweight nerd and in love with his best friend Jamie (Smart), but she only thought of him like a brother. Ten years later, Chris is now a hot L.A. music exec and finds himself himself back in his hometown and in love with Jamie all over again. But can they really be more than Just Friends?

DVD Features:
Alternate endings
Audio Commentary
Deleted Scenes
Featurette
Gag Reel
Music Video
Theatrical Trailer

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1915 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2006-03-07
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 96 minutes

Features

• Back in high school, Chris (Reynolds) was an overweight nerd and in love with his best friend Jamie (Smart), but she only thought of him like a brother. Ten years later, Chris is now a hot L.A. music exec and finds himself himself back in his hometown and in love with Jamie all over again. But can they really be more than Just Friends?Running Time: 94 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY

Amazon.com
Manic energy and an agreeable level of comic insanity turn Just Friends into the kind of brainless comedy you can enjoy as a modest guilty pleasure. If you liked director Roger Kumble's previous comedy The Sweetest Thing (and let's face it, that movie had some really funny moments), chances are you'll get at least a few solid belly-laughs from this not-so-high-concept premise, in which a formerly fat high-schooler named Chris (Ryan Reynolds) is transformed, ten years later, into a womanizing music executive with a high-profile client (Anna Faris) in the Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera mold. As it zips along with some broad-stroked slapstick and snappy one-liners, the screenplay by Adam Tex Davis contrives to reunite Chris with Jamie (Amy Smart), the former cheerleader who was the great, unrequited love of Chris' miserable high-school life. By his narcissistic logic, he'll seduce her by treating her badly (i.e. she'll want what she thinks she can't have), but he gets unexpected competition in the form of a "Mr. Sensitive" type (Chris Klein, from American Pie), and it's pretty much Hollywood formula from there on, as Just Friends loses momentum without losing its basic appeal. And while Reynolds invests his character with an unexpected degree of emotional nuance, Faris (Scary Movie 3) pulls out all the stops, going deliriously over-the-top to maintain her reputation as a rising comedy starlet with a (hopefully) promising future. We're not talking rocket science here, folks... just sit back, take off your thinking cap, and have some fun. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

She's no ordinary girl
At a high school graduation party, overweight Chris Brander (Ryan Reynolds) attempts to reveal his true feelings for his best friend Jamie Palomino (Amy Smart), but ends up making an utter fool of himself. What's worse, his humiliation takes place in front of his jeering teenage peers. A decade later, Chris has become a success story. He is now thin, prosperous, is a hit with girls, and works as an executive in the music industry. His latest assignment is escorting wacky starlet/pop princess and ex-flame Samantha James (Anna Faris) to Paris, France. But their plane has to make an unscheduled landing in Jersey, Chris's high school home. Rationally, Chris and Samantha decide to stay at his old house. Chris has a reunion with his former buddies, including the winsome Jamie, who immediately rekindles that old spark within Chris. The remainder of the film concerns Chris's efforts to make Jamie see him as more than a friend, while simultaneously fending off the warped Samantha. Competition comes in the form of a former fellow nerd turned sensitive guy Dusty Dinkleman (Chris Klein).

Just Friends is a very funny, feel-good movie. Ryan Reynolds is a hoot as a brash L.A. stud who disastrously channels his inner dweeb whenever he's around unrequited love Jamie. Ryan is really excellent with physical comedy. There are scenes with him that are just uproarious (case in point, the aftermath of his politically incorrect hockey game with the kids). I even enjoyed his frequent Three Stooges encounters with his kid brother (Chris Marquette). And when he has to, Ryan steps outside the slapstick and layers in a deeper nuanced, more introspective performance. I ended up rooting for Chris, even though he was overly cocky and big-timed his home town folks. And then there's Amy Smart, who seemingly can do no wrong. There's just something so lovable and natural about her. She embodies the type of girl every guy would want to be with. Anna Faris's turn as the unstable Samantha adds to the already boisterous feel of the film. Samantha actually scares me. Chris Klein's Dusty, Chris's guitar-playing, song-writing rival, is disgustingly touchy-feely. One would wish that a different sort of arc for Dusty's character had been laid out; the script writer, in my eyes, sold out and made things too convenient for Chris, with regards to Dusty. Julie Hagerty (Airplane!) has a goofy supporting role as Chris's mom.

The special features are tasty:

- a filmmakers' film commentary
- "Tales from the Friend Zone" featurette (the cast & crew talk about real life "just friends" experiences)
- "Developing Just Friends" featurette (wherein we learn of the script's 7 year odyssey and how, originally, Chris didn't get the girl at the end)
- "A Director's Guide to Comedy" featurette
- "The Transformation" featurette (about Ryan's fat face make-up)
- "The Body Shake" featurette (the awkwardness of when you're dropping off a date; do you hug or kiss?)
- "It's Friggin' Cold" featurette (the cast & crew basically complaining about how cold the shooting was)
- "A Writer's Journey" featurette (focus on script writer Adam "Tex" Davis)
- "A Disaster in the Making" featurette (about the making of the Palomino house X-mas decor and its eventual fate)
- "The Reshoots" featurette (the making of the eventual ending of the film, which wasn't the original ending)
- a so-so blooper reel
- deleted scenes
- an alternate ending (this was the initially intended ending; you could see why they changed it)
- an amusing "Jamie Smiles" video
- theatrical trailer

So, try out this movie. It'll make you smile and laugh and even feel nostalgic because, let's face it: just like me, you've been in Chris's position before, too.

You'll always be fat to me!
This movie definitely turned out to be better than expected. I'd just seen "Waiting", which was decent, so I was interested to see what this Ryan Reynolds film would have to offer.

This movie had a much better storyline than did "Waiting..." It was very refreshing to see Ryan Reynolds play a character that wasn't Van Wilder-esque. He gives a very funny performance as the fat-kid turned Hollywood man-about-town who returns home and reconnects with the girl who broke his heart in his youth.

The movie is funny right off the starting line and remains funny throughout.

Recommended.

Entertaining movie with solid cast, overall a ticket to the fun zone...
Movies don't need to be artsy, characters don't all need to be perfect, and actors don't need to be Oscar winners for you to enjoy a film. Just Friends, the new release starring Ryan Reynolds, Amy Smart, Christopher Marquette, and Chris Klein, is a suprisingly funny and enjoyable movie that is worth a rental for a fun evening.

Ryan Reynolds plays Chris Brander, the Van Wilder of the Hollywood music scene. He's attractive, cocky, and utterly appealing to the ladies, with a succesful career and more money than he knows what to do with. He latest task, signing pop star and ex-fling Samantha James (Anna Faris), who makes Ashlee Simpson look like a PhD candidate. Having fled New Jersey 10 years ago in humiliation, after a high school graduation night party gone Oh So Wrong, Chris is involuntarily dragged back to Jersey after a flight to Paris with Samantha is interrupted by a microwave explosion.(apparently Samantha never knew you didnt microwave tin foil) Chris brings her home to his spacy mother(Julie Haggerty) and his live-at-home brother Mikey. (Christopher Marquette, The Girl Next Door).

We discover that the current charmer used to be Jersey's biggest high school loser: fat, dorky and endlessly pining for his best friend, Jamie Pallomino (Amy Smart). Chris was the Mayor of the Friend Zone, and has lived his life trying to forget those days. Chris runs into Jamie at the local bar, where his old feelings resurface in a second. Pawning Samantha off onto his lust-filled brother, Chris pursues Jamie with renewed passion. Unfortunately, the old Chris still lurks beneath the new exterior, full of insecurity, love, clumsiness and self-doubt. Will he escape the Friend Zone and get the girl? Considering its Amy Smart, who never fails to make the audience fall in love with her, we certainly hope so. He does have competition though. Dusty Dinkelman (a very funny Chris Klein), a once former loser like Chris, has also returned to town with new looks and the ability to be charming sensitive guy, and he is also after Jamie.

There are moments of pure hilarity, some entertaining slapstick, and solid performances by Reynolds, Smart, Klein, Faris, and Marquette. The movie doesn't humiliate overweight people, and Reynolds brings a suprisingly vulnerable side to the flashback scenes. There are hysterical moments that don't fit the movie well, mostly with Faris parodying the pop-tarts of the moment, and at times the plot tries to incorporate too much, almost if a producer was reading the script and said, "we need more funny!" All in all though a good, funny, entertaining movie with a solid cast. Recommended.