Hey, everyone, Rusty here. This is a new recurring column—basically, here we’ll cover movies that we caught later in their runs, but, despite our awful lateness, we still want to pass our thoughts to you. They will be longer than our Daily Munchies, but shorter than the Weekend Bites (especially mine). So, with that, let’s jump in for the first in this column…
Review: “The Ugly Truth”
My rating: 2 bites [out of 5]
Pretty much exactly what you’d expect. If you’ve seen the commercials, the trailers, or, even the poster, you know exactly how this ends. Chances are, you’ll probably know every step along the way, too.
I promised Luke and Ace that I could do a review that didn’t go on for 4 pages, so here we go—the “in a nutshell” version: Katherine Heigl’s Abby Richter is a single, neurotic morning news producer in Sacramento (do well-adjusted, rational working women even exist in Hollywood romantic comedies?). Desperate for ratings, her station hires Gerard Butler’s Mike, the host of a raunchy public access show about relationships, to bring his segment, “The Ugly Truth” to their news program.
And what do you know? Abby and Mike clash, especially on the topic of relationships. She’s repulsed by his lewd, womanizing ways, while he thinks she’s completely naïve about men’s intentions. They bicker, they fight—they just can’t seem to get along for the first third of the movie…until a contrived bet gets them working together to help Abby woo a bland, good-looking doctor. Gee, what do you think might happen?
I’m being a bit mean here, especially since I normally love these types of movies. But “The Ugly Truth” just doesn’t have enough wit, cleverness, or, really, romance to justify seeing it in theaters. There’s something very true about people growing closer when they start being honest and open with one another (as opposed to superficial dating behavior), but this movie doesn’t even attempt to dig into that more (“He’s Just Not that Into You,” another mediocre rom-com, flirted with this too, to slightly better results). Abby and Mike do bond by being themselves, but they mostly seem to be going through the motions, as opposed to genuinely falling in love…and that’s a shame, since Butler and Heigl show some nice chemistry in their sequences together.
I’ve been a fan of Gerard Butler (“300,” “Phantom of the Opera,” “Rock ‘n’ Rolla”) for a while, and to his credit, he actually comes off charming here. His character is even relatively interesting, and most of the laughs in the movie (and there are quite a few, to the movie’s credit) are courtesy of him.
Heigl, on the other hand, is certainly talented—she held her own opposite the funny boys of “Knocked Up” and my friends love her on “Grey’s Anatomy,” but, here, you could tell she’s trying hard to make Abby funny. It doesn’t help that Abby’s not so much a real woman, but a bundle of neurotic and awkward tics (and this is a film written by three women. Really? This is the best you could come up with?). At times, she almost feels like a ridiculous-neuroses or bad-female-stereotype checklist: She does background checks on blind dates? Check! She loves her cat too much, meaning that she’s single? Check! She seems desperate to find a man to, you know, finally be happy and complete? Double check! To be fair, her performance relaxes and becomes a lot more natural in the second half, when she’s free to have some fun and tackle some believable emotions, which all goes to show that she’s made for better material. She’s got the talent—now she just needs to choose better projects. “27 Dresses” and “The Ugly Truth” aren’t exactly constructing a legacy.
The movie was directed by Robert Luketic, who also made the clever, very rewatchable “Legally Blonde” (also by the “Ugly Truth” screenwriters) and the underseen charmer, “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!” He’s capable of much better too when he clicks with the material.
There’s really not much more to say: this review might sound harsh, but, by all means, the film isn’t terrible and it goes down pretty easily. Catch it on TNT on a lazy Saturday, and it’ll do the job perfectly.
You honestly could do worse—there are some funny moments sprinkled throughout, and the stars have enough charisma to carry the movie through the end. But if you really like any of the people involved, watch their superior projects instead. Rent “Knocked Up” or the moving and quite romantic “Dear Frankie” (easily Butler’s best performance). Maybe dust off your DVD of “Legally Blonde” or just buy “Tad Hamilton” from the bargain bin (trust me, it’ll be like half the price of one ticket to see this movie).
Or, best yet, just skip this one altogether and go see “(500) Days of Summer”—“The Ugly Truth” will probably be sold out anyway…and you really won’t be sorry you traded up.
-Rusty
Image courtesy of Sony Pictures.
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