The Bounty Hunter

Watching The Bounty Hunter only makes you wonder what a better movie it would have been if it had played upon the strengths of its stars, Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston. They're tossed aside here, forced to wind their way through a labored and dumb plot we don't care much about. Instead of creating real chemistry, they run around exchanging insults, and engaging in non-stop bickering. It's not even funny bickering. If you were sitting in a restaurant, and were forced to listen to a couple at another table have the same kind of arguments these characters have, you'd ask your server to move you to another table.

It wants to be a romantic comedy with action elements, and fails on both counts. We don't like the romantic leads, and judging by this film, director Andy Tennant (Fool's Gold) doesn't know how to stage an exciting action sequence. So, we start to look for something else to grasp onto, maybe some wit or original thought in the script itself. But screenwriter Sarah Thorp gives us none. She at least gives us a premise that could have worked in a better screenplay. Aniston plays a reporter named Nicole, who is investigating a recent suicide that she thinks is a cover up murder. Her investigation causes her to miss her court date over a minor incident involving a police officer. A bounty is put out on Nicole for her capture, which is brought to the attention of Butler's character, Milo. He's her ex-husband, a former cop turned bounty hunter. They had a whirlwind romance, a brief marriage, then found out they drove each other crazy and divorced. We don't get to see why these two characters would be attracted to each other, other than physical appearances.

Then again, Milo and Nicole are not interesting people to start with. They have no personality and no defining characteristics, other than she's an emotionally wound up woman, and he's a slob. The two are reunited when he tracks her down and captures her at a horse racing track. From that point, we wait for sparks to fly, since the movie is obviously going to have them rediscover feelings for each other during their journey together. The sparks never come, because the movie gets lost in a convoluted crime plot involving dirty cops, drug deals, hitmen, and crooked bounty hunters. I highly doubt the audience paying to see The Bounty Hunter is interested in stuff like that. They come for some funny, possibly sexy interplay between the two stars. They'll be disappointed. The stars have zero chemistry, and there's not a single laugh to be had. As I sat stone-faced and realized it was going to be a very long movie, I hoped it would be over soon enough. Turns out, the movie runs almost two hours. To say that there's not enough here to fill almost two hours of material would be an understatement.

The script is completely by the numbers, and filled with moments we can figure out almost as soon as they start. We learn that Milo has a beloved car, so naturally it's going to have its windows shot out by thugs pursuing them, and be wrecked by the end. And when the couple hop aboard a golf cart to chase after a fleeing person they want to question, we just know that cart is going to end up in a water hazard on the golf course before it's over. Scene after weary scene, the movie never disappoints. It also fills itself with a lot of pointless characters, such as a nerdy and kind of creepy co-worker of Nicole's (Jason Sudeikis from TV's Saturday Night Live), who follows her and ends up getting captured by some crooked bounty hunters who mistake him for Milo. He's not funny in the slightest here, his plot goes nowhere, and it could have been removed from the film without any harm. Then again, the same could be said for most of the film.

As I think back on The Bounty Hunter, I find that I keep on going back to Cop Out, another failed action-comedy from about a month ago. Both films concerned themselves with an unlikable duo played by actors who had no chemistry. And both have completely disposable villains that fail to make the slightest impression. The lead villain here is filled in by Peter Greene, but judging by the amount of screen time he gets, it barely registers as a cameo. He threatens someone with a tattoo needle, he gets involved in a car chase, then he shows up for the required warehouse shootout at the end. The movie puts no thought into its villain, just like it put as little thought as possible into everything else.

I'm trying hard to think of something positive or redeeming to say about this film, but I'm coming up empty. The movie is a total paycheck for its stars, and a waste of time for everyone else. I'm sure the studio is hoping for one big weekend at the box office due to the fans of Aniston or Butler. Maybe if The Bounty Hunter had a real script, they could have gotten two or three weekends out of it.

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