Review of A Guy Thing (2003) by Phillie E — 21 Sep 2015

"A Guy Thing" is yet another comedy where the plot would be over if the main character stopped acting like a fool and simply explained to everyone what was really going on. Julia Stiles, Jason Lee and Selma Blair are all fine but the material they're given is nothing but uninspired comedy hijinks.

Paul (Jason Lee) couldn't be happier as he says goodbye to the singles life. He's about to marry Karen (Selma Blair) so of course he has to take part in a wild bachelor party. He wakes up in the morning next to a plucky, intelligent and attractive woman that just might be the perfect match for him... too bad he's already engaged! It gets even worse when he finds out that Becky (Julia Stiles) is his fiancé's cousin, meaning there's no way he can avoid her as the big day gets closer and closer!

There's not much of a plot here, just stuff that happens until the obligatory romantic comedy events happen and the movie ends. I really don't have much to say, so I'm just going to share my thoughts at some of the more "memorable" scenes. Call SPOILER ALERT if you want.

For me, the trouble began right after that initial meet cute with Becky. After some scrambling where Paul has to meet up with his fiancé while hiding a pair of unwanted panties, he heads to work. What's that? You're wondering what kind of person schedules a bachelor party on a Sunday night? Well the imaginary romantic comedy kind of people we find in this movie of course! The plot proceeds from there with a horrible scene where Paul has to give a presentation to his boss (who is also his fiancé's father) while trying to hide the fact that his crotch is extremely itchy. Yeah it's as bad as it sounds. Following that is a trip to that imaginary pharmacy where everyone yells out the embarrassing prescriptions for every customer to hear (is there a chance someone who shouldn't know that Paul has crabs might show up?), a family dinner where the has to hide in the bathroom and pretend to have bowel problems, some friction between the parents because one of the fathers acts really inappropriately (because of course, it's not like you would have met your future son-in-law's father before the rehearsal dinner) and more that kind of comedic situations. SPOILERS END.

To this picture's credit, there's some good chemistry between the leads. Both Julia Stiles and Selma Blair are very sexy women so anytime they're on the screen you'll be happy to see them. On the negative side, along with the bad comedy we also get a really lame villain that is so exaggerated he's more entertaining than hateful and it's nothing short of an avalanche of convenient mishaps over and over. We're talking about the kind of story where the most inappropriate thing that could happen does... every time. It makes for a frustrating story.

Maybe if you're just a sucker for romantic comedies you might find this one ok but really, you've seen this tale done often, better and in many other movies. "A Guy Thing" does have some funny moments and the actors are talented but even the best people can't make a good movie out of a lazy script. (On Dvd, February 18, 2013).