A GUY THING -----------
Paul Morse (Jason Lee, "Big Trouble ") must have really enjoyed his bachelor party - he's woken up with beautiful Becky (Julia Stiles, "The Bourne Identity") in his bed. Of course Paul wouldn't want his fiancee Karen (Selma Blair, "The Sweetest Thing") to know about this - it's, you know, "A Guy Thing."
Greg Glienna (story, screenplay with Pete Schwaba, Matt Tarses and Bill Wrubel), who wrote the original "Meet the Parents" (not the Ben Stiller/Robert DeNiro adapted one), stays with the pre-nups using the hoary device of an 'about-to-be-married' meeting the person of their dreams as marriage to another looms. "A Guy Thing" struggles for air beneath a heap of unappealing bathroom humor and obvious payoffs to overly foreshadowed punchlines before coming to something resembling life in its second half.
Paul's convinced by his best buddy Jim (Shawn Hatosy, "John Q") not to come clean with Karen as he's unlikely to ever see Becky again. Of course, Becky begins to show up everywhere, including a family dinner at Paul's in-laws-to-be, where she's introduced as Karen's cousin. Paul keeps getting into hotter and hotter water but we know it ultimately won't matter because his young brother keeps singing Karen's praises (to take the sting out of her eventual dumping) and he himself is obviously too delighted with Becky's unorthodox ways.
"A Guy Thing" is at its best when it sticks to its titular subplot and achieves a true comedy moment when a stranger helps out Paul before explaining to an observer that what he just did was 'a guy thing.' While Paul is one of those almost perfect male characters, Jim represents the more typical male and Hatosy is a charming natural in the role. A pharmacy assistant caught in the crossfire of a stale joke turns the tables on a helpless Paul and accepts a catering gig from Paul's mom to be and the third act payoff is almost tasty.
The cast, which also features Diana Scarwid ("What Lies Beneath") and James Brolin ("Catch Me If You Can") as Karen's snobbish wealthy parents and Julie Hagerty ("Freddy Got Fingered") and Michael Teigen as Paul's boorish
ones, help divert attention from cliches, although both Lochlyn Munro ("Scary Movie") as Becky's psycho cop ex-boyfriend and Larry Miller as Paul's minister neighbor, embody them. Selma Blair shakes the mothballs off her "Legally Blonde" Wasp as Karen. Stiles engages with her smile.
"A Guy Thing" is a weird hybrid of gross-out humor for the guys and romantic comedy for the ladies that does neither genre justice yet delivers a few unexpectedly good moments amidst the pandering obvious ones.
C
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