How To Lose Friends & Alienate People Review

If you read Toby Young's 'How To Lose Friends & Influence People' or its sequel 'The Sound Of No Hands Clapping' it's clear that the person least qualified to play the journalist-cum-professional schumck is Simon Pegg. A man so nice it's a real stretch for him to play nasty (see the Stereophonics-lovin', scooter-ridin' Evan in 'Black Books'), Pegg has far more charisma than the former editor of The Modern Review.

Unfortunate and unsympathetic, the real-life Young would make an unusual movie fall guy. So when they came to adapt 'How To Lose Friends...' the execs chose a guy it's easy to root for. As such the producers and director Robert B Weide (of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' fame) have ended up with a conventional comedy lead, a standard story and a film that doesn't have much in common with the book that inspired it.