This is one of those comedies your mother brings home thinking it
might be "cute funny"; you know: no boobies, not much swearing,
little to no violence, and written in a way that everyone gets the
jokes.................and she'd be right.
Matthew Perry does his best NOT to be Chandler Bing in his role
as cynical process server Joe Tyler, and walks a fine line between
success and reliance on his old character traits. He swears, lies,
doesn't shave and wears a leather jacket, but every now and again
slips back into a motion or facial expression that is the essence of
Chandler Bing. Oh well, he's still the best performer in the film.
Liz Hurley, as a supposedly devoted wife, oblivious to her
husband's extramarital affair and suddenly served with divorce
papers, shows all of the emotion of canned tuna. Let's face it, she
is merely 'eye-candy' in the picture. And Cedric The Entertainer is
appallingly one-dimensional and insipid in his role as Tyler's boss
(he delivers lines like an urban Henny Youngman, for pete's
sake!).
The real problems here are dialogue and comic timing though.
Every line (especially those given to/ by Perry) come across as so
completely scripted and placed within the conversations that all
the comedy of the actual words seem forced, and resultingly not
humourous at all. The dialogue also suffers from both not wanting
to step on the other characters lines, and in needing to spoon-feed
the storyline so completely to the viewer (which makes one feel
about 3 years old by movie's end). Then there is the 'tear-jerking'
story behind why Tyler does this for a living, and the horribly forced
romance between Perry and Hurley's characters to add to the
growing miasma of distaste in your mouth.
I never laughed once. My family chuckled here and there. And in
the end, as the credits rolled, my mother chimed in, "That was
pretty good." Our home theatre remained silent in response.
5/10. Not terrible, but nothing I'd watch again or recommend in
good conscience.
