Bounty Hunter

Bounty Hunter

Staring:

Jennifer Aniston

Gerard Butler

The W.I.R.A.*

*What's It Roughly About

A comedy about um…..well a bounty hunter…and his ex-wife who he has to bounty hunt…..

Ok I really have to stop doing this....

I know I shouldn’t and yet I still do

My mind says…”no don’t!” ….but I can’t resist…

What shouldn’t I do? Watch the trailers for comedy films, that’s what! I should just look at the writing and the cover and say “ok this looks funny, I’ll take it.” By pressing the show trailer button on itunes or anywhere else you will most likely be sapping all the fun out of the film because they will show you all the best bits! Why they do this I don’t know….and who “they” are I also don’t know, obviously people who enjoy sucking the fun out of comedies….

Anyway mini-rant over let me start again. Ok so I recently saw Gerard Butler in a film called Law Abiding Citizen..a very dark and gripping thriller (also starring Jamie Foxx) and so I was interested to see how he would handle a sort of caper-comedy. I had no such doubts about Jennifer Aniston who, apart being ultra sexy (especially in the little black dress she wore for a lot of the film that showed off her legs really nicely…focus Sir Mark) has a background in comedy - from Friends through to the various films she has made.

The plot is pretty straight forward. Nicole (Jennifer Aniston) is a reporter who has a lead on a big story. She also was involved in a traffic violation that means she has to be at court to answer the charges….but the story comes first and she skips the hearing. Milo (Gerard Butler) is an ex-cop who now works as a bounty hunter…he is also Nicole’s ex-husband. He is over the moon when his boss hands him Nicole as his next assignment. Catching her is no problem but holding on to her definitely is, as she tries to explain about the story and he tries to get her to jail. Eventually he gets pulled into the world that she has uncovered involving shady cops and drugs and they both have to work together to bring the villain to justice….along the way of course romance is kick started again and the ending you expect at the beginning is pretty much the ending you get. Which is no bad thing - who doesn’t like a happy ending.

So what did I think of it?

I would say that it was an average film. I did laugh a few times but, as I said before, a lot of those laughs were expected in a sort of “oh yeah, I remember this scene is funny” kind of way. The two lead actors were ok - these weren’t complex roles so there was nothing wrong with either performance. I think some of the funniest lines came from the supporting cast and the two stars did the physical comedy well.

The film felt a bit patchy to me, as if it was trying to fit into several different genres and not being true to any of them. Was it a comedy? Was it a romantic comedy? Was it a thriller? Now some films can weave these threads together nicely and make a fun coherent story….this felt more like a whole collection of ideas being forced onto the screen…

One scene for instance involves a guy being tortured…or threatened with torture. I think the torture in question involved tattooing something on the guys eyelids. The man is gagged and looks genuinely afraid….as you would do if someone was about to tattoo something on your eyelids - well most people would, I pass no judgement on people who are into eyelid tattoos….. Now in a certain type of film this would be a scene that ratcheted up the tension, made you root for the heroes to come save them and sympathise with the poor tied up and gagged guy. However in this film the scene would come after some slapstick comedy, ex-husband / ex-wife bickering or an “oh my god why did we get a divorce” scene. It didn’t fit.

In conclusion:

Its certainly not a terrible film and, if you don’t watch the trailer first, its quite a funny film in places. However I think its ultimately unsatisfying as it doesn’t seem to know what its trying to be and this makes it struggle to take the audience along on its journey. Its like a GPS system for the car that keeps telling you to turn around when possible….So hunt this one down if you want but don’t pay too high a bounty

Grace rating:

6/10