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Friday, August 23, 2002
A romance with as much chemistry as oil and water
Poor Reginald Hudlin. Between shutting down mid-production for Matthew Perry's drug rehab stint, enduring Elizabeth Hurley's high profile breakup with her millionaire boyfriend while waiting out Perry's treatment, and rushing to finish before her pregnancy began to show, the hapless director persevered against all odds and finished the film.
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Too bad he couldn't overcome a bigger crisis: a complete lack of chemistry between its stars. It makes you wonder if the accusation that Perry fathered Hurley's child was simply a desperate ploy to convince the public that these two generated some sparks offscreen. There's certainly none on display in this soggy film.
Perry, wearing a studied sneer, plays a sardonic process server and Hurley is the wronged wife of larger-than-life Texan millionaire Bruce Campbell, a philandering big-horn of a tycoon who ambushes her with divorce papers in order to cut her out of a settlement.
Imagine a cynical take on "It Happened One Night" by way of "Midnight Run" with a cast of cynics, connivers and back-stabbers.
Vengeful Hurley, who at least comes across more hurt and angry than greedy, hires Perry to turn the tables on her cheating hubby and serve him with her own papers so she can get home-court advantage in liberal New York. All that's standing in their way is a sabotaging fellow process server (Vincent Pastore of "The Sopranos"), a badass urban cowboy whose snakeskin boots sport mounted rattlesnake heads like hood ornaments, and Campbell's pink pompon of a mistress with a conniving soul (Amy Adams).
Hudlin tries hard to make this funny, but the script by sitcom veterans Jay Scherick and David Ronn is full of sour notes, and Perry is as charismatic as a stump and as pleasant as dry rot. Tired dialogue hints at a romantic hiding beneath sarcasm, but his sour performance dispels all such notions.
Hurley at least has some life and verve, but her part has all the sass of a kitten. She should give as good as she gets, but instead she pouts at Perry's sarcastic stings and then smiles an invitation for more. This is a relationship that calls for sparks, but Hudlin is stuck trying to light a fire with soggy leaves. For all the hot air expended, this film ends up all smoke and no heat.
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