I'm not entirely sure why this movie has a less than stellar rating. I watched it on Netflix and honestly was not expecting much, but wound up being very pleasantly surprised.
The opening of the movie has such great physical comedy, I was laughing out loud. It was a really refreshing change from all the sex and fart jokes most movies have (which can totally be funny, but let's face it, are way over done and over-relied upon at this point). I grew up watching (re-runs of) I Love Lucy, so I'm a big fan of physical comedy, which just isn't used as often anymore, particularly with female characters for some reason.
What I really loved about this film was that while it was completely laugh out loud funny, it actually made me care about the characters. Most straight-up comedies (non rom-coms) don't do that. But at the same time, it wasn't so over the top that it felt like it was changing genres or anything. I just actually cared what happened to them, while of course laughing at their ridiculous predicaments.
I've seen a good number of Jaime King's films and, in my humble opinion, this is one of her best performances, both for the comedy and the softly stated drama of her character. Usually when I've seen a lot of one actor's films, it takes me out of the world and I just think of the character as the actor. That didn't happen here.
While I generally like Josh Cooke, I will say that I'm not entirely sure he was the best choice for his role. He did a good job, but something just felt off in believing he was this criminal that could go off at any moment. And, IMHO, it is necessary to believe that in this film. The plot started to get a little stale towards the end, and I think some of it could have been left out, but it moved along quickly enough that I wasn't bored, and ultimately it didn't detract enough from the film to make an impact on my overall opinion of it.
A Fork in the Road is a great movie to watch if you just want something funny, that isn't plain stupid or a stoner/slacker movie. Worth checking out!