Pegg stars in How to Lose Friends & Alienate People as Sidney Young, a writer who is desperate to cover entertainment from the inside. He lives in London and edits a low-rent magazine called The Post Modern Review. After bringing thrown out of the BAFTA rewards, he gets a call from Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges), the editor of Sharps magazine, who invites him to come work in New York. Young arrives in America ready to conquer high society and the entertainment industry. But, he quickly learns that his pompous and obnoxious act is not going to be accepted at Sharps. He's placed on the "I Spy" desk under Lawrence Maddox (Danny Huston), a sycophant who is more interested in pleasing stars and their agents than journalism. Although Young annoys everyone, he finds a confidant in co-worker Allson Olsen (Kirsten Dunst). In the midst of all of this, Young meets an actress named Sophie Maes (Megan Fox) and is immediately smitten by her. Suddenly, despite all of the craziness happening around him, and the fact that his job may be in danger, Young decides that he will do anything to get Sophie to notice him.

I've written before about how it's impossible to review movies in a vacuum and that certainly comes into play with How to Lose Friends & Alienate People. Taken on its own, the movie isn't that bad. The movie is based on the memoirs of Toby Young, a British writer who went to work for Vanity Fair in New York and immediately pissed off everyone. The movie takes that story and plays as a fish out of water tale...where the fish isn't all that likable at first. Similar to a comedic anit-hero, Sidney is thrust at us and we, like those around him, don't know what to make of this blowhard who wears a ribald t-shirt on his first day of work. Our affection towards him doesn't grow when he become infatuated with Sophie. And yet, as played by Pegg, Sidney has a boisterous playfulness which is infectious. He may be crass and crude, but he's also funny at times. I also liked Dunst here, who, to an extent, has taken on a role which is much more dowdy than the characters which she typically plays.

And yet, as someone who loves Shaun of the Dead, I can't help but compared How to Lose Friends & Alienate People to Pegg's other work and the movie simply doesn't come close to the standard set by the films which he's made with Wright and Frost. As the movie deals with a man who was a grating maverick, it's ironic to say that it's quite pedestrian. While there are a few shocking moments in the film (most of which deal with transsexuals), there are no real surprises in the script. From the outset, most viewers will know exactly what kind of path Sidney is going to follow. The trajectory of his relationships with everyone around him -- Alison, Sophie, Maddox, Harding -- are telegraphed from the beginning, and the movie never veers far from a standard Hollywood story. I'm not familiar with Toby Young's story (and we don't learn much about him in the extras on DVD), but I doubt that he life was this "scripted".

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People may just live up to its title given how mediocre the film is. Pegg's talents don't necessarily go to waste here -- again, he makes an unlikable character likable -- but one can almost feel him holding himself back at times. The rest of the impressive cast is good, but no one really shines here. The rags to riches to starstruck story feels cliched and the schmaltzy ending doesn't fit the rest of the film. Pegg fans will certainly want to check this out, just don't expect it to be like his other movies.

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People gives a fake name on DVD courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the transfer is enhanced for 16 x 9 TVs. For this review, I watched one of Fox's notorious screener discs. The image is sharp and clear, but it did show a notable amount of grain. There were no noticeable defects from the source material. The image looks slightly washed out, and the colors weren't very vibrant. Surprisingly, for a DVD, the depth was good. The DVD carries a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track which provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The track does a solid job of presenting the audio for this comedy. We get some nice stereo effects and solid surround effects during the party scenes. The in-film music sounds fine and provides solid bass effects.