Movie Title: A Guy Thing

Movie Title: A Guy Thing
Rating: 6
Reviewed By: Michael Stevens

Review:

I really like Jason Lee and Julia Stiles. I think both have promising careers ahead of them, as long as they don’t do too many romantic comedies, since there can only be one Meg Ryan.

As to the film that the two are in with Selma Blair, A Guy Thing, it is a dreaded romantic comedy. And after watching it, I remembered that I had seen this film before, many times under different titles, such as Forces of Nature or even The Tailor of Panama. So I thought to myself that certainly writers could come up with an original story idea, but then I realized I was thinking about Hollywood and knew that I must have been eating the wrong kind of mushrooms (or right kind depending upon your point of view). Anyway, the film starts at the bachelor party for one Paul Morse (Lee, Stealing Harvard), a party that he just is not into, until the Tiki girls come out. One of these girls, we later learn her name is Becky (Stiles, The Bourne Identity), is not very good at what she does, so the two start drinking together. Next thing we know, the phone is ringing back at Paul’s place, and it is his mother-in-law to be on the phone asking for her daughter. Well her daughter Karen (Selma Blair, The Sweetest Thing) is not there yet, but the Tiki girl is. In fact Paul is in bed with a naked Tiki girl just a week before he ties the knot, but he has no idea how this happened, or even what happened. He only knows that he needs to get this girl out of his apartment before Karen gets there. He is able to get her out of there, but this Becky girl turns out to be Karen’s cousin, so she keeps popping back into his life. This poses many problems for Paul who also happens to work for his fiancé’s father, Ken (James Brolin, Catch Me If You Can). So not only does he have to watch out to keep his wedding on, he also has to be careful not to lose his precious job. Only thing is, he ends up spending more and more time with Becky, which helps him to discover that he has a pretty boring life, and that marrying the safe Karen might not be the best thing for him. Plus Paul’s brother Peter (Thomas Lennon, Out Cold) has an unhealthy idealization of Karen that freaks out everyone but Karen. Anyway, basically anything that can go wrong leading up to the wedding does, but will Karen and Paul still walk down the isle, why is dancing instructor Lou (Michael Teigen) so graceful, and can Paul survive Becky’s ex-boyfriend the psycho cop Ray’s (Lochlyn Munro, Dracula 2000) attempts to get rid of him? Only you can find out, but I will say much of it is funny.

Other people to mention in the movie are Shawn Hatosy as Paul’s best friend Jim, Julie Hagerty, Enid-Raye Adams, Colin Foo, Diana Scarwid as Karen’s mom, Ron Selmour, Chang Tseng, Smith Brody, Larry Miller as a minister, Jackie Burroughs as a crazy aunt, and finally, Fred Ewanuick as Jeff the pharmacy clerk turned chef. Chris Koch directs the screenplay that Greg Glienna wrote (though not very original).

A Guy thing has lots of laughs. It is a funny situation. Generally speaking I liked the film and enjoyed watching it. Now if I had never seen a lot of other movies I might say it is a great film, but I have scene lots of other movies, thus I cannot say it is a great movie. I can say it is a rather un-imaginative and un-original movie with quite a few laughs that in a year you would never be able to distinguish it from a dozen other films in the same genre. As to the rating, I give in six couches, but only because it really is that funny.

Bye.