Starring Jamie Foxx,
Morris Chestnut. Written and directed by Daniel Taplitz. (PG) 82 min.
Opens May 14.
A romantic comedy about
getting dumped isn't the smartest of ideas. You're
supposed to leave a date movie scouting for an appropriately dark
alley to make out in, not dreading one of those relationship talks
while mentally dividing up the record collection. For those in secure
relationships, this halfway-amusing Jamie Foxx vehicle will be a
passable night out, but the romantically crippled will be bookmarking
their partner's every nervous guffaw.
Foxx plays Quincy
Watson, a writer at a men's magazine whose spineless boss,
Philip (Peter MacNicol), assigns him the unpleasant task of axing a
handful of his co-workers. Already bummed at being unexpectedly cut
loose by his fiancée (Bianca Lawson) during their engagement
party, Quincy quits his job and, using Corporate America's
cutthroat employee-termination manuals as a guide, writes a
best-selling handbook on how to sink any relationship.
From here, things get a
wee bit complicated: as a breakup guru, Quincy is enlisted by both
his low-down, dirty-dawg cousin, Evan (Morris Chestnut), and his
former boss to assist them in ending their relationships. Philip's
gold-digging girlfriend (Jennifer Esposito) has his gonads in a
kung-fu death grip, while ladies' man Evan has simply gotten
bored with his darling Nicky (Gabrielle Union). Aided by a series of
predictable coincidences and a truckload of that good ol'
mistaken-identity movie magic, Quincy and Nicky hit it off and fall
in love.
While they are often
cute together, it's difficult to see what attracts Union's
character to the awkward, goofy and decidedly un-suave Quincy. The
charismatic Foxx is likeable enough as a lead, but struggles to find
the handle here between romantic and zany, opting for adorably gawky
instead. Sure, he's a quick-witted, puppy-dog romantic and a
best-selling author, but could you ever be romantically secure with
someone who's an expert on breaking hearts?
What's worse,
writer-director Daniel Taplitz sticks determinedly to the middle of
the road, piling on one-liners and cheap laughs while almost
completely overlooking his film's best gimmick — the book
itself. The bits that do come up, like Quincy's quick 'n'
dirty “passive-aggressive bullet-to-the-head technique,”
are a good start, but this rich mine of comedic potential goes
virtually untapped. The seeds of a cruelly funny battle-of-the-sexes
satire are here, but sadly, most of them are wasted on standard-issue
rom-com slush.