Long Shot Review: 6 Ups & 2 Downs

1. It's More Formulaic Than It Wants To Admit

The film has been marketed as a "reverse Pretty Woman", with many reviews praising how cleverly it subverts expectations for the rom-com genre. And while that's true to a point, it's also fair to say that Long Shot doesn't paint too far outside the genre lines.

The A-to-B-to-C of the narrative is still near enough what you'd expect from a film like this - there's a hookup, a major roadblock, and a climactic reunion.

It's a smart rendition of that formula, for sure, but at its core it's still a broad studio comedy that boasts just enough edge to stand out.

You can sense the film striving to point out how it flips rom-com tropes, but at the end of the day, swapping the gender of the focal roles only does so much to alleviate the familiarity. It still ticks most of the expected boxes without making any truly big gambles.

But with these gripes considered, here's everything Long Shot gets so, so right...