20130920: Comedy Review--A Guy Thing

A Guy Thing

1. Fundamentals
1. American live action feature length film, 2003, rated R, comedy of errors.
2. IMDB: 5.5/10.0 from 10,310 users.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 24% on the meter; 37% from 72,885 audience ratings.
4. Directed by: Chris Koch; written by Greg Glienna.
5. Starring: Julia Stiles as Becky, Jason Lee as Paul, Selma Blair as Karen, Lochlyn Munro as Ray, Thomas Lennon as Pete.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Paul and Karen are to be married.  Paul drinks too much at the bachelor party, and wakes up with someone not his fiancee.  He jumps to conclusions.  Their timing is off, and it is a while before she gets to tell him that they did not have sex.  In the mean time, he keeps encountering her because she's always changing jobs, and it's in the screenplay.


2. Paul has various misadventures with his prospective in-laws, and spins lies to keep the incident with Becky quiet.


3. Then he finds out Becky is Karen's cousin.


4. Fifty seven minutes in, the useless actor Lochlyn Munro is beating the crap out of Paul, then intimidating him, then threatening him. Throwing Paul to the ground when he has two armloads of groceries was bad enough; then he jams a french fry up Paul's nose.  Why?  Munro had his girlfriend Becky followed, and Paul kept showing up.  This movie is an irredeemable piece of bovine scatology.  The shark was jumped.


5. Earlier on, Munro was shown beating up suspects in a police precinct.  Munro seems to be typecast to play testosterone challenged throwbacks who think that they are entitled to break the law as well as other people's faces.  He's a failed hockey player, so no surprise there.  Later on, he breaks in to Paul's apartment, makes a sandwich, and eats it while roughing up Paul.  Breaking and entering, theft, what else?  More intimidation, more physical abuse, more verbal abuse.  Fortunately, by this time, Paul had already started taping the interactions for the other cops.  Ray gets hauled away in cuffs.


6. The scene where Paul and Becky are trapped temporarily in the shower because Ray's dog keeps baring its teeth at them--was mercifully short. 


7. I could have lived without the 2003-style marijuana humor.
8. Despite all sorts of gaffes, the wedding goes on.  When asked for objections, no one says anything.  Then Paul speaks up.  Then Pete, who was attracted to Karen (as pointed out so many times in the film) sings to her.  Pete and Karen run off together.  Paul gets the bouquet.  Eventually he runs after Becky.  She's in a car, he's on foot. What an ending.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Avoid this comedy of errors.
2. One star of five, one blackhole for having Lochlyn Munro in the cast.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 OK.


2. Sound: 8/10 OK.


3. Acting: 2/10 The actors hit their marks and spoke their lines, but oh, goodness, why did I have to listen to them?  Why would Karen still want to marry Paul after being around any of his friends?  Why would the police department keep a psycho like Ray on the force when everyday he is just a lawsuit waiting to happen?  I usually like Julia Stiles, but the movie is mostly about Jason Lee's character.  Yep, that Jason Lee, the one who went on to give us the memorable (and terrible) My Name Is Earl and Alvin and the Chipmunks.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Neither clever, nor witty, nor funny, nor genuine, nor believable.  It's easy to see why the IMDb and RT ratings were so low.