Shrill battle of the sexes; wash; rinse; repeat. Gerard Butler plays a bounty hunter tasked to bring in his feisty reporter ex-wife (she skipped out on traffic court). Do filmmakers not think of or not care about the question, “What on Earth do these two see in each other?” Maybe they do think of it, but prefer to present it as a rhetorical problem or Rorschach-type test, where the answer says more about the respondent than the film. When will we reach the end of Butler’s lark as a romantic comedy lead? With his gaping, chauvinistic arsehole schtick more practiced than his American accent, I can’t think of any redeeming quality in his screen presence, except for the service he must perform for those among us who enjoy a little punishment with their pleasure.
This article appears in Mar 18-24, 2010.
