Boreanaz plays Lance Valenteen, a ladies man who gets hired by guys that have been dumped by their girlfriends. Lance, as "Mr. Fix It," seduces the guys ex-girlfriend and becomes such a bad boyfriend that the girl runs back into her ex-boyfriend's arms. I've always thought Boreanaz was too brooding and tortured on Angel, and in Bones he slurs his words and lulls me to sleep. But somehow in this movie he's transformed into a high energy, funny, vulnerable romantic lead. Maybe it's the blonde (or gold?) hair dye that changed him but whatever it is it works, and it works well.
The movie starts off, after some pretty funny scenes of "Mr. Fix It" at work, with Lance getting hired by Bill Smith (Pat Healy) to help him get back his ex-girlfriend, an Italian-accented hottie named Sophia Fiori (Alana De La Garza). Sophia dumped Bill because he was a chronic liar so Lance concocts a plan to seduce Sophia, get her to fall in love with him, and then reveal that all the reasons she fell in love with him were lies. With her heart broken, Bill's lies will pale in comparison.
The execution of the plan is pretty much the movie: They date, they start to fall for each other, blah, blah, blah
it's a romantic comedy so you pretty much know the story and how it ends. But that's the thing with this movie - you don't know! It takes the accepted conventions of romantic comedies and not only satirizes them, but uses them to lull the audience into a false sense of comfort so that each new shock is so unexpected that it's embraced by the viewer. The charm of the movie, and there's a lot of it, comes from its ability to work within the confines of the genre while carefully breaking some of it's rules, making for an entertaining, unpredictable story.
I've never seen the female lead before, Alana De La Garza, but she made the film. This movie is almost a romantic comedy for guys, which makes you root for Lance. But Garza plays the role of Sophia note perfect, with a dashing combination of innocence and beauty, that you start cringing knowing what lies ahead and hope somehow, someway, she won't get hurt. Halfway through the movie I wasn't sure who I was rooting for since you genuinely like both characters. "Mr. Fix It" has a message but unlike most films you believe the message because you've learned it as the characters have: through situations and conflict. It's not underdeveloped and forced as in other romantic comedies.
