Secondhand Reviews: The Ugly Truth

 If you're like me (and if you are, I'll bet you're sorry) you welcome any chance to see movies... especially a formulaic genre like romantic comedies... that give you something unique, something you haven't seen countless times before, something that really seems to open up the possiblities of what a traditionally formula-bound genre can be. So you'll doubtless welcome "The Ugly Truth", one of the most strikingly original.... sorry, I just can't keep typing this thing with a straight face. I really tried to get through this entire paragraph without breaking into hysterical laughter (something that I wish had happened much more often during the movie), but I just couldn't do it.

See how long I need to go into this plot summary before you can figure out the entire movie without having actually seen any of it: Katherine Heigl plays the producer of a ratings-endangered news program who VERY reluctantly accepts her boss' suggestion for a new segment: "The Ugly Truth", a totally boorish, macho, woman-hating segment of dating advice for men hosted by a pmpous but popular jerk played by Gerard Butler. Butler knows Heighl hates him, so he agrees to resign from the segment if his advice can't help Heigl to succeed romantically with her handsome neighbor. Of course, things don't go as planned. And of course you already know exactly HOW things don't go as planned.

When Gerard Butler's name is mentioned, most folks probably think of big, bloody action movies like "300", or possibly the film version of the musical of "The Phantom Of The Opera". But he has tried his hand at romantic comedy before. Why don't you remember that? Because he seems to have a taste in romantic comedy scripts that's even worse that Sandra Bullock's has been recently, and doesn't seem to display any talent for playing funny in a natural style... you can see him sonsciously "acting" funny the entire time, just like he did in the almost totally unamusing "P.S. I Love You" from 2007. If you don't recall that one, don't lose any sleep over it.

I've never seen Heigl on "Grey's Anatomy", so I don't know what she's like as a dramatic actress. I do know that in spite of her publicly voiced comments about how "Knocked Up", which made her a comedy sensation, was rather sexist and showed men in a much more sympathetic light than women (complaints that I certainly cannot completely deny, mind you), she did still manage to make her character a real person and bring both dignity and slapstick sillyness to the role. But since then, having turned to co-producing her own movies, she's been on a downhill slope, giving us roles and films that are an embarassment to women in general, perpetuating even worse stereotypes than those "Knocked Up" trafficked in, and giving increasingly rote performances in them. Her role in "The Ugly Truth" goes even further in this direction than "27 Dresses", which I wouldn't have thought possible. Possibly she thinks the movie is being even-handed because Butler's performance is also the ultimate stereotype of all the negative aspects of his gender, but really... if you had a film in which the two leading characters were one black man and one white, would it be enlightened and even-handed if the film portrayed BOTH of them as stereotypical idiots? Right, I don't think so, either.

But stereotypes, unengaged performances, and a weak script aren't the only things the audience has to deal with in "The Ugly Truth". There's also the way the movie continually "borrows" (so much nicer a word than "stealing", don't you think?) classic moments from other romantic comedies. If you were to release a version of this movie containing only the scenes that were genuinely original to this film, you'd have a very short movie indeed, but one moment in particular should be singled out: a scene at a business meeting in a restaurant in which Heigl, is forced to blatantly copy perhaps the single most remembered moment from "When Harry Met Sally". I don't know if "Harry & Sally" screenwriter Nora Ephron actually has any legal grounds for a suit, but she ought to think about it. But I suppose the obvious imitation could provide some moments of amusement during the long dull stretches and audience members can play a little game of "Where DId This Scene Come From?". You've got to find your fun somewhere.

"The Ugly Truth" didn't exactly burn up the box office charts, but it did do decent business and made a profit, just as audiences a couple months back flocked to "The Proposal" (which, you might recall, I was also somewhat less than fond of). Meanwhile, "The Burning Plain", which I liked a lot (and which is not reviewed here due to its being a new release movie still in first run theatres) has gotten nothing but bad reviews and done virtually no business. So I'm thinking that maybe I can make a little extra cash by placing bets on how movies are going to ultimately wind up on Rotten Tomatoes.com's "Tomatometer" by going to the extreme opposite of whatever my opinion is. Of course, I know that's an exaggeration and there are plenty of movies where my opinion does agree with the majority, but after a string of films like these, you can't blame a person for starting to wonder what's wrong with people. I mean, which is worse: the apparent disappearance of civility as exemplified by people like Kanye West, Joe Wilson and Venus Williams, or the fact that so many people find movies like "The Ugly Truth" to be enoyable? It's like a line from a comic play I saw years ago called "Warped" put it: "The human mind is still a great mystery, even to those of us who use it every day". Truer words have rarely been spoken.