Bounty Hunter

To be fair I watched this one on an airplane after sleeping maybe an hour the night before so my attention may have waned in an out, as did my consciousness. Jennifer Aniston looked pretty tired in this film. Too many late nights on set? Alcoholism? Tabloid fever? She is showing her forty plus years, that is for sure. Gerard Butler seems like a hyperactive child in comparison. There was zero chemistry between the two. The "romantic" scenes felt forced and uncomfortable which led to few if any laughs. The secondary characters were even more stereotyped than usual, probably to offset the flat main characters. And the plot? Well I can't say I know what exactly happened. Aniston's character was supposed to be solving this many layered press mystery, trying to find a missing reporter, and investigating the possible corruption of the local police. Meanwhile Butler's character is an ex-cop (we never really figure out why he left the force just a few random comments about laziness) turned bounty hunter (hence title) who is out to collect his ex-wife (who he apparently divorced for working too much?) for skipping out on her court appearance. The mystery unraveled rather quickly and the movie tried to press on the relationship between Butler and Aniston by playing on their history together (as craps playing bed and breakfast frequenters) which was far less interesting.

It seemed like this movie wanted to go in a hundred different directions. It wanted to be deep, meaningful, mysterious, more than just your average romantic comedy, but they not only missed the mark in all of those categories they didn't focus on their genre enough to use the romantic relationship as a foothold. The love between the main characters, the will they/won't they is what gets the viewer through the obviously staged "tension" and "obstacles" put in their way, without that you just have two people running around aimlessly for no reason who somehow manage to have even less intrigue by the end of the film than they did in the opening credits. I generally find Aniston capable enough and hell, Butler isn't hard to look at for an hour and a half, but there are thousands of romantic comedies out there that don't lack both romance and comedy.