Simon Pegg, like fellow British comedian Ricky Gervais, is usually at his best when he writes his own material. From the Britcom Spaced to Shaun of the Dead to Hot Fuzz (let's just forget about Run, Fatboy, Run, shall we?), Pegg, along with writing partner Edgar Wright, brings a unique inflection to his comedy. Trying to interpret someone else's work (as Gervais did in Ghost Town) naturally neuters some of his humor.

This can plainly be seen in How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, where Pegg plays Sidney Young, a British entertainment writer who tries to take America by storm after being hired by the (fictional) Sharps magazine. Once in New York, however, Sidney becomes frustrated by the lack of assignments from editor Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges), a rivalry with a senior editor (Danny Huston), and a seemingly-adversarial relationship with Alison (Kirsten Dunst), a fellow low-level writer. A chance meeting with movie star Sophie Maes (the ever-alluring Megan Fox) puts Sidney on a mission to get into her good graces, even if that means sacrificing more than a little of his dignity/professional ethics.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like a movie called How to Lose Friends and Alienate People should, you know, have the protagonist losing friends and alienating people. Oh, Sidney does a lot of ignorant and stupid stuff, but Pegg is a natural goofy charmer, so nothing he does ever comes across as mean-spirited. Most of his mistakes are accidents or misunderstandings, not vicious or petty. In fact, more often than not, he appears to be trying to ingratiate himself to almost everyone around him, even if he goes about it in an odd way.

The film contains a lot of funny moments, but is never as raucously funny as it should be and, with its transformation of Sidney from glorified gofer to mover and shaker, it smells like the male version of The Devil Wears Prada. Bridges' Harding, though, never gives off the impression of an overbearing ogre a la Meryl Streep; on the contrary, his threats toward Sidney ring more and more hollow the longer he keeps him on. Likewise, Dunst is supposed to be Sidney's antagonist, but she and Pegg are more like lightly bickering siblings, a feeling that becomes creepier as the film goes along.

Pegg plays the role of a jerk well when he's allowed to actually be one. In those rare moments, he gets a mischievous twinkle in his eye, heightening the humor. Most of the time, though, he seems to be stuck in neutral, as are Bridges and Dunst in most of their scenes. Fox makes a visual impression, but her acting leaves more than a little to be desired.

The final insult is when the film ends on a note that's almost completely at odds with everything that led up to that point. The filmmakers drop hints about the ending along the way, but it still feels like they're pandering to the audience, rather than staying true to the story at hand. In that respect, the title is somewhat prescient – the ending certainly alienated this film critic.