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There's a pivotal scene in the new film How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days in which the two main characters, who are attempting to further their careers by pretending to be in love with one another, play a card game. It's one of those perfunctory romantic-comedy moments in which Boy and Girl begin to realize they may really have feelings for their counterpart. But perhaps using the word "pivotal" overstates the actual gravity of this scene. The only reason I'm mentioning it is because the card game they're playing is called Bullshit, which involves trying to bluff the other players and shouting "Bullshit!" when they attempt to do the same to you.
I personally shouted "Bullshit!" a number of times when I saw Days. The film is 100% pure bullshit, from the overblown setup of its idiotic premise, right through to its final scene, which looked like it was shot through a lens smeared with at least three jars of Vaseline. Days is a watered-down, lightweight version of War of the Roses made for people who still think Friends is funny. Its two leads are jerks who we're practically forced into liking against our will (they may as well have named it Everybody Loves This Movie). Worst of all, though, the unoriginal film plods along for two hours, which is about 30 minutes too long for any formulaic rom-com. It's forced me to take new action with my rating system. From now on, any chick-flick that breaks the 90-minute mark loses a point right off the bat. Top 100 minutes, and you lose two, and so on and so forth for every 10-minute increment of excrement.
Here's a quick rundown of Days' "protagonists." See if you can relate to, or care about, either of them:
Andie Anderson (Kate Hudson, The Four Feathers) has a Master's degree from Columbia but uses her education to pen a "How To" column for the New York City-based Composure, the fastest-growing women's magazine in the country. She really wants to write stuff about politics and religion, but instead is forced to concentrate on liposuction and shoes. When one of her ridiculously out-of-touch co-workers (Kathryn Hahn, Crossing Jordan) gets dumped by her umpteenth boyfriend for being too psychotically clingly, Andie decides her next column will be called How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Now all she needs is some poor sap she can pretend to fall for so she can try out every dating "don't" on him. If the column is a hit, her boss (Bebe Neuwirth, Tadpole) promises her more creative freedom.
Meanwhile, cocky ad executive Benjamin Barry (Matthew McConaughey, Reign of Fire) is desperately trying to convince his boss (Robert Klein) to let him handle a big new account that had previously been promised to a pair of evil co-workers (Shalom Harlow and Michael Michele). Eventually, everyone agrees to an unusual bet in which Ben must make an anonymous girl fall in love with him before the big pitch meeting (which, coincidentally, is in 10 days). He also enjoys taking off his shirt, which is a revelation far more important to the target audience of this film than petty things like story or character development.
As one would expect, Andie and Benjamin, after meeting-cute by having an entire conversation in 12 words, begin to date and are completely oblivious to the dark secret harbored by their brand-new partner. She starts to do things to make him dump her, and he is forced to grin and bear it. Doesn't that sound like a blast? I'm sure most of America could just stay home and focus on their own fucked-up relationships, saving a whole bunch of money in the process. Are we really supposed to like either one of these characters? If someone put a gun to your head and made you pull a Sophie's Choice, would you pick the one pretending to be a psycho, or the one pretending to be a nice guy even though he's an arrogant douche? Jesus H. Christ, that's the toughest decision since Bush vs. Gore.
There isn't one good thing about Days, aside from a couple of Adam Goldberg's lines (he plays one of Ben's co-workers). Its very foundation - a women's magazine article about how to get a guy to dump you - is remarkably stupid. If you don't think women already know what to do to make guys vanish, you're one dumb bastard. Don't get me started on the scene where Andie pretends to be a vegetarian on her second date, after wolfing down lobster on their first, or the numerous scenes in which these supposedly upscale Manhattanites swig down Budweiser. They make slightly more sense than Hollywood's insistence that Hudson is going to be a big star. Her only discernible talent is an ability to chew large mouthfuls of food. And if that makes you a star, I've got to start packing my bags and making my way to the Left Coast.
1:56 - PG-13 for some sex-related material
========== X-RAMR-ID: 34209 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 839754 X-RT-TitleID: 1119960 X-RT-SourceID: 595 X-RT-AuthorID: 1146 X-RT-RatingText: 2/10
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