The Bounty Hunter (Jennifer Aniston, Gerard Butler) – Jennifer Aniston is hot. Unfortunately, this movie isn’t. I don’t know why Jen keeps picking these awful scripts. I have to believe that she gets good offers given her talent, looks, and Friends following. Other than The Good Girl and perhaps Derailed, she has been in a lot of awful films. Gerard Butler, on the other hand, has no following but he has tried his hand in a variety of genres, none very spectacular. 300 was a big hit but P.S. I Love You and Law Abiding Citizen were bombs. RocknRolla was definitely a surprise but I was one of the 100 people who saw it. Putting these two beautiful people together in a movie sounded like a good idea to someone. If only they had a decent script. The director, Andy Tennant, also has a spotty record with a nice romantic comedy in Hitch and awful ones in Fool’s Gold and Sweet Home Alabama. What all of these have in common are highly bankable stars.
But nothing can save The Bounty Hunter. The best parts of the movie are in the trailer, which leads you to believe that this is a comedic romp. Not. This tries to be a murder mystery, too. The premise is totally unoriginal: a divorced couple supposedly hates each other but is thrown together in an improbable circumstance. Nicole Hurley is an investigative reporter who chooses to follow an informant’s lead rather than show up for her bail hearing on a charge of assaulting an officer (we find out she scraped a police horse – oh God). Her ex, Milo, is a former cop who is now a bounty hunter who draws the assignment of bringing her into the police (as if she is a menace to society). Of course, merry mix-ups then occur as he tries to corral her while she tries to solve the murder. What follows is not only implausible, it is impossibly long and boring. We know the ending 40 minutes into the movie. Thank goodness, my wife could look at Butler and I could stare at Jen (she just turned 40, you know). Otherwise, our matinee tickets would have been a waste of money.