Review: The Bounty Hunter

In the film, Milo Boyd (Gerard Butler) is a down-on-his-luck bounty hunter who gets his dream job when he is assigned to track down his bail-jumping ex-wife, reporter Nicole Hurly (Jennifer Aniston).

This is pretty much explained in the first scene, her escaping from the boot of his car and running away. Stop frame and words pop up indicating that he’s a bounty hunter, she’s a bail jumper, then TA-DA they are ex husband and wife. This lead to one of the very few laugh out loud moments for me. When a film needs to explain the pitch in the first scene it’s all down hill from there. I can actually see them in the room with the production company pitching the idea.

‘Great idea for a film lads, do you have a story to go with it?’

‘A story? eh….sure we do’

Then they left the room and wrote something on a napkin which is akin to…

‘He thinks all that’s ahead is an easy payday, but when Nicole gives him the slip so she can chase a lead on a murder cover-up, Milo realizes that nothing ever goes simply with him and Nicole. The exes continually one-up each other – until they find themselves on the run for their lives. They thought their promise to love, honor and obey was tough – staying alive is going to be a whole lot tougher.’

This is a romantic comedy, though neither of those words feature strongly in the film. Aniston and Butler spend most of the film sniping at each other, not even in a sexy flirty way, more like your parents bickering because your father took a wrong turn and refuses to ask for directions. The plot devices of him being a bounty hunter lead to predictable jokes such as ‘Sure I’m handcuffed to the bed, we were only trying out something new’. She’s a reporter, her informer who is a gormless bar man gets kidnapped because she discovered a suicide was actually a murder. Being honest, the word suicide was being batted around so much in the first 5 minutes I was wondering what kind of romantic comedy I was watching. A feeling didn’t leave me for the entire film.

Romantic implies romance, that the characters might actually love each other, or be lovable enough to deserve that love. This film is the equivalent of when my mother would lock our dog in the shed with another dog with hopes of puppies arising from it, instead you’d just hear a low whine of one of the dogs hoping for freedom.

Comedy implies that something would be funny. The trick to good comedic dialogue is the characters saying things that are so witty you wish you’d said them yourself. Though if you’re looking for an ego boost you’d leave this film feeling like Oscar Wilde. Did anyone else in the cinema enjoy it? The girls beside me did, but then again they also had to explain to each other why something had made them laugh.

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Now don’t get me wrong, I am a woman, as cynical as I appear I enjoy romantic comedy. I saw Butler’s previous brush with the genre The Ugly Truth and you know what, though it was generally slated by the critics it was watchable. If you want to see him in a good romantic film I’d suggest you watch Dear Frankie which is quite a sweet film with Butler looking quite less muscle bound. For those who care about this thing, you do get to see him in a towel at one point in the movie.

Aniston seems to be typecast into playing characters which are a bit like Rachel from Friends, it gets a bit tired but I think most important is that she herself is getting tired of it too. I couldn’t help but feel that she would be happier in a more serious role where the camera wasn’t focussed on her ass as she walked around or having her fall into large bodies of water so her T-shirt is soaked.

Are there good points to the film? Well the soundtrack is quite current as if in an effort to warm you to the film they lace it with recent pop hits in an attempt to breed more familiarity than contempt.

Ladies listen to me now, don’t have it in your head that I’ve no idea what I’m talking about and the film is great. It’s not and if you bring some poor young fella on a date to see this he’ll run for the hills after.

Alternatively you’ll be so bonded by mutual hatred for the film you’ll be inseparable, after all this movie goes to show that the path to true love is filled with hate.

This would get one star out of five, if you’re into that kinda thing.