Release Date: January 26, 2007 Studio: Columbia Pictures MPAA Rating: PG-13 Genre: Romantic •
Drama Director: Susannah Grant Writers: Jenno Topping Cast: Jennifer Garner, Timothy Olyphant, Sam Jaeger, Kevin Smith, Juliette Lewis, Joshua Friesen Synopsis: After the sudden death of her fiancé, Gray Wheeler finds comfort in the company of his friends: lighthearted and comic Sam, hyper-responsible Dennis, and, oddly enough, his old childhood buddy Fritz, an irresponsible playboy whom she'd previously pegged as one of the least reliable people in the world. As secrets about her supposedly perfect fiancé emerge, Gray comes to see new sides of the man she thought she knew, and at the same time, finds herself drawn to the last man she ever expected to fall for. The Review: You're Critic for the Evening: M
There are some movies that just feel like someone sat back with a wall full of Hollywood formulas and a fist full of darts until they have enough ingredients to fax over to the team of monkeys they have chained to the typewriters. This is one of those movies and this is one of those reviews.
The base formula in Catch and Release is simply unlikely love. You know the one I mean; uptight girl denies fun loving player until they learn how much they have in common or how much they complete each other while they dance around plucky comic relief, love-lorn angst and montages of sugary moments as they fall in love.
Spoilers Ahead (Roll Eyes Here)
When Gray Wheeler (Jennifer Garner) is faced with the death of her fiancé she finds solace in his best mates, but soon the solid upstanding man she loved starts turning out to have had a few secrets. While I am no fan of hers I'm not a hater of Mrs. Affleck either, she is decent in this movie considering the material she's working with. One of the most odd things about her character in this movie though is that she doesn't seem to have a single friend of her own??. How about some family? Certainly there should have been at least ONE member of her family at the funeral, maybe even one that would stick around and support her afterwards? Nope. There were plenty of people at the Funeral to console her but they pretty much vanish after that. Maybe she's a stuck up little snot and everyone hates her? Who knows? While she can certainly be a wet blanket I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt that maybe it was just because her soul mate just died. The film doesn't provide any answers so let's move past that.
Not to discount Fritz (Timothy Olyphant) or Dennis (Sam Jaeger) but to save you time lets face it the character to watch is Sam (Kevin Smith). He's the go to guy in this cast to bring in ticket sales outside the chick flick demographic and try to stabilize this film from becoming a rom-drama instead. Sadly Kevin has some moments in this film where you can just feel his boredom and self consciousness on screen. He has many a giggle and some real moments but there are not enough of them. Sam seems out of place in the script and struggling to fit in, at one point he announces he's depressed and even though he never seems to be tries to take his own life which once he survives is swept under the rug just as fast. To add to that he falls for Maureen (Juliette Lewis) who's not only "The Other Woman" she's a masseuse from LA with a terror child in tow. Lets face it dating a masseuse sounds great right? WRONG! Dating a masseuse is like dating a hooker; when they are off the clock they ain't jones'n to suck you off.
The movie is just one of those utterly predictable bits of fluff and should be treated as such. Gray is the uptight girl, Fritz is the playboy, Dennis is the love-lorn, Sam is the comic relief. I've had tougher times figuring out a paint by numbers and I found myself trying so hard to switch off my logic centers I had to fight not to just tune the movie out. Adding to that the film is a total mess even after several release date push backs and edits. If you have to suck it up for a date movie you could do worse but if you can help it avoid this until DVD. Rating:
