According
to the opening credit sequence, it took contributions from three additional
writers to round-off Greg Gilenna’s original screenplay for the new trite
comedy, A Guy Thing. The three assisting writers mostly worked in
television, and after viewing their final product, it appears as if they all had
the Farrelly brothers DVD collection on rotation. Unlike a film such as There’s
Something About Mary, the physical gags in A Guy Thing are forced and
never aid its pixie-stick thin story. It is as though Gilenna’s screenplay was
filled with blanks that read “Inert Joke Here”, which is why the film, while
enjoyable and at times even downright funny, is nothing more than dull studio
fare.
Ex-pro
skateboarder Jason Lee is a charismatic actor. Directors such as Kevin Smith
have made good use of Lee in films like Chasing Amy, but the actor cannot
(as of yet) carry a film as the leading man. Since Lee usually plays sidekick to
other male actors (most recently alongside Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky),
it’s nice to see him cast as Paul Morse, the sweet and bumbling protagonist of
A Guy Thing.
Paul
is engaged to his boss’ daughter, Karen (Selma Blair), a stereotypical rich
daddy’s girl. On the morning after his bachelor party, thrown by his
womanizing and preachy best friend (Shawn Hatosy), Paul wakes up in his
apartment to find one of the strippers lying beside him. She in Becky (Julia
Stiles), and in addition to being related to Paul’s fiancé, she is the exact
opposite of Karen. Becky switches jobs every week or so and lives spontaneously;
all characteristics that appeal to Paul’s routine-filled lifestyle.
Many characters appear throughout A Guy Thing to cause the groom-to-be trouble before his wedding day, as Paul gets deeper and deeper in trouble with the cops and Becky’s jealous ex-boyfriend. For the most part, both the characters and situations are uninspired. When Paul wants to avoid Becky at a dinner party, he fakes having diarrhea and hides out in the bathroom all night. For another family dinner, the chef adds pot to the gravy and everyone gets high. You can tell the film wants to be funny, but it does not know how. Shaun Sages
GRADE: C
-Copyright 2003 by
Shaun
Sages