Rated PG-13 - Running Time: 1:41 - Released 1/17/03
A GUY THING
Rated PG-13 - Running Time: 1:41 - Released 1/17/03
You can tell you’ve really made it when your tastes get so
refined that you have to start making terrible movies just to
pay the bills. Such is apparently the case with Jason Lee and
Julia Stiles, two very promising actors who have shown they have
the chops to succeed if the material is adequate. A Guy Thing,
written by Greg Glienna (with 3 others) and directed by Chris
Koch (Snow Day), is most certainly
not adequate. It’s pure tripe, and the cast knows it. Even
as we watch and listen to the nominees and winners of Golden Globes
and Academy Awards discussing the better movies of the past year,
we are reminded of the immense volume of trash that is churned
out of Hollywood by producers who are more interested in raking
in the bucks from undiscriminating teenagers than even trying
for anything resembling art. For their part, Lee and Stiles use
their considerable charm to attempt the impossible task of making
this film watchable. They fail, but at least they try.
Lee plays Paul Morse, a magazine ad man from Seattle who is
about to marry Karen (Selma Blair), the daughter of his immensely
wealthy and powerful boss (James Brolin), who is, of course, a
control freak of the highest magnitude. However, on the morning
after his bachelor party, he wakes up with one of the strippers
hired for the event. Her name is Becky (Stiles), and although
he was actually too drunk to have sex with her, he is now too
hung over to know that. Now he must not only hide his indiscretion
from Karen and her dad, but deal with the violent retribution
visited on him by Becky’s psychotic ex-boyfriend (Lochlyn
Munro), who has just become a member of Seattle’s finest.
Then, to make matters worse, he discovers that Becky is actually
Karen’s cousin, and will be at the wedding and a recurring
character in the rest of his life. But frankly that’s not
so bad, because he kind of likes her better than his bride-to-be
anyway.
It wouldn’t be that bad if this were just a run-of-the-mill
romantic comedy with hackneyed dialogue and plot elements we had
all seen before. Well, yes, it would be that bad—but it’s
worse. Because even though it is all those things, it’s not
even handled well by director Koch. This movie is littered with
lost threads, jokes set up and never realized, seeds planted that
never flower. Plot points are introduced for the purpose of some
lame joke or silly situation and then forgotten as if they never
happened. Conflicts are never properly resolved. Characters are
designed simply to fulfill some stereotype, and do things that
are clearly not in their best interest just so we can enjoy a
joke we’ve seen a million times before. What’s more,
this isn’t even a new story idea. The plot is basically the
same as 1999's infinitely better Forces
Of Nature, with some minor alterations. Incidentally,
it also bears shades of last year’s Cameron Diaz vehicle
The Sweetest Thing, which
featured Blair playing pretty much the same part.
I’m happy that Lee and Stiles are so successful they can purchase the 50-foot yachts, or the swanky mid-town apartments, or the candy-apple red Porches. Good for them. But I guess if you want to make the payments, you have to make movies like this. I guess it’s just A Star Thing. *½
