This woefully misguided romantic comedy breaks the single most basic rule of the genre: The jousting lovebirds must be likable, no matter how badly they misbehave while pursuing amour. Instead, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days gives us a screeching shrew of a heroine and a jelly-spined pushover of a hero. Not wishing them well is beside the point; you will quickly find yourself wishing they would vamoose, the sooner the better.
How to Lose never recovers from its unlikely (and beyond dumb) setup: Columnist Andie Anderson (Hudson) is assigned to write a story for Composure, a glossy women's monthly, on getting a man to dump her in 10 days. The same day, hotshot advertising executive Benjamin Barry (McConaughey) bets colleagues that he can make a woman fall in love with him in a week and a half. These two Manhattanites meet that night and, though they have chemistry to spare, immediately start scamming each other. Andie is soon acting like a psycho witch in hopes that Benjamin will throw her over; he grovels, begging for more because he needs her as his trophy honey on deadline day. Will true love prevail? The movie barely gives us a reason to care.
For anyone old enough to have grown up watching her mother, seeing Hudson struggle with the sort of I'm-so-cute-you'll-forgive-me-anything part that Goldie Hawn used to own is disorienting. Hudson looks and sounds eerily like Mom; what's missing, at least here, is the charm and the giggle, which would have gone a long way toward rescuing her. While personable, McConaughey is big, blond and bland, making him the perfect "B"-picture leading man, a role he now seems destined to fill. (PG-13)
BOTTOM LINE: How to lose us in less than 2 hours
Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson
This follow-up to 2000's Shanghai Noon reunites Chan, as a Chinese Imperial Guard transplanted to the Wild West, and Wilson, a reformed and unusually chatty outlaw. Like the first Shanghai, it's a light slapstick comedy, perfect for kids.
This time the friends travel to London in search of the purloined Chinese royal seal (the thing you stamp letters with, not the animal that balances a ball) and stumble on a plot to assassinate Queen Victoria. Wilson floats through it all on a stream of wisecracks: He may have the mussed blond looks of a surfer bonked on the noggin one time too many, but his timing is smoothly understated. Chan's stunt work here isn't terribly rigorous, but armed with an umbrella he performs a charming salute to Singin' in the Rain. (PG-13)
BOTTOM LINE: Nice Knights
Documentary
Featured attraction
Lost in La Mancha
When director Terry Gilliam, the quirky visionary behind the Monty Python movies, Brazil and 12 Monkeys, set out to fulfill his longtime dream of bringing Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote to the screen, he agreed to let documentarians Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe hang around his production offices and the set in Spain with their cameras for a making-of-the-movie film. What Gilliam unintentionally gave them instead was the unmaking of a movie.
The resulting documentary, Lost in La Mancha, is a heartbreakingly funny account of how Gilliam tilted at windmills and lost. Bad weather, a leading man's illness and budget qualms caused Gilliam's moneymen to pull the plug shortly after the cameras began rolling. Johnny Depp, who was to play Sancho Panza, shows up wearing dark glasses and mumbling. (R)
BOTTOM LINE: A real find
Gabrielle Union, LL Cool J
Let's hear it for James Todd Smith, better known as LL Cool J (he is billed as both here but henceforth will switch to Smith for films). The rapper turned actor (see page 107) has, over time, developed a disarmingly easygoing, attractive screen presence. He makes Deliver Us from Eva, a harmless trifle of a romantic comedy, go down smoother than it deserves.
He cruises through the film as Ray, a supposed stud to whom three men offer $5,000 if he can woo and then dump Eva (Union), the bossy sister of their wives and girlfriends. But Ray, a fundamentally decent sort, falls hard for Eva. It's a nasty premise; only Smith's innate sweetness makes it all semitolerable. (R)
BOTTOM LINE: LL delivers; Eva doesn't
Take heart: With Valentine's Day approaching, here's a look at some popular romantic comedies—both current and classic—available on DVD. We guarantee every one of them has a happy ending.
•My Big Fat Greek Wedding Last year's sleeper hit about a Greek-American woman (Nia Vardalos, who also wrote the script) marrying a WASP schoolteacher (John Corbett). Bonuses: amusing commentary by Vardalos (she identifies cameos by her relatives) and Greek subtitles. (PG)
•Sweet Home Alabama Southern belle Reese Witherspoon must choose between her childhood sweetheart (Josh Lucas) and a rich dreamboat (Patrick Dempsey) from New York City. Bonuses: eight deleted scenes and an alternative ending. (PG-13)
•Brown Sugar Hip-hop fans Sanaa Lathan and Taye Diggs realize almost too late they're in tune romantically. Bonuses: four cut scenes. (PG-13)
•Claudine Diahann Carroll earned an Oscar nomination for her heartfelt turn in 1974 as a mother of six who's courted by a jovial garbageman (James Earl Jones). Bonuses: commentary by Carroll and Jones, who still regard the film fondly, and a groovy trailer. (PG)
•Pillow Talk This 1959 comedy is the first and best of the three Doris Day-Rock Hudson pairings. She's a decorator; he's a Broadway songwriter who monopolizes their shared phone party line. Bonuses: the original trailer. (Not rated)
•It Happened One Night A runaway heiress (Claudette Colbert) meets a gruff reporter (Clark Gable) on a bus trip in a 1934 screwball classic. Bonuses: informative commentary by Frank Capra Jr., the namesake son of the director. (Not rated)
- Contributors:
- Tom Gliatto.
