This item is currently not available. If you have this item,
Join and post it to share with others.
Matthew Perry is a gifted comic actor whose style works nicely on TV but somehow hasn't translated into movie success. To change the formula a bit,Serving Saraputs Perry in a slightly scruffier mode, and pairs him with an actress whose sexiness and comic aplomb should be a good counterpart to his wonderfully shticky style: Elizabeth Hurley. And it still doesn't work. This one is set in the exciting world of process-serving, where Perry teams up with jilted wife Hurley to sting her rich husband (reliable goof Bruce Campbell). This screwball plot might have worked if the two stars evinced any chemistry together, and if director Reginald Hudlin knew how to set up a scene. Bright spot: Cedric the Entertainer, as Perry's boss, gets laughs just from doing the tiniest bits of business while seated behind his desk. No small thing in a movie that otherwise labors.--Robert Horton
utter cac! I shouldnt be wasting my time writing this so I'm gonna keep it short and unsweet.
This movie is ABSOLUTELY AWFUL!!! I bought it from the bargain bin in my local DVD shop for £4.99 (over priced). It should have been in the trash bin which is where it is now.
Acting: Awful Story: Awful Direction: Awful (the director, on the interview, makes it sound like he's made some fantastic movie!!! He should never work again with a budget over £500)
Infact, it made me feel sick it was that bad!!! DONT rent or buy it.Neither Funny Nor Romantic: Worth Mostly For Precious Supports Like Campbell and Cedric the Entertainer It is strange but true. For the reasons Heaven only knows, someone at one Japanese distributing company decided to theatrically release `Serving Sara' in Japan on 26th November, 2005, the same day as the fourth `Harry Potter' film. Not a very clever way of doing business, I thought, but anyway I went to see it, not for Elizabeth Hurley or Matthew Perry, but for underrated Bruce Campbell, best known as `Ash' in the Evil Dead trilogy. Well, he was good, and so is Cedric the Entertainer, but the film itself was a dull comedy from the beginning to the end.
The hero of the film is played by Matthew Perry, whose character Joe Tyler as process server is a fairly interesting one. Hired by shifty Ray (Cedric the Entertainer) Joe risks his life delivering process, and his job is a unique choice for a comedy. And let's give him a due credit (even though I didn't like `Friends' very much) for Perry is always amusing to see when doing a character in ridiculous situation like `The Whole Nine Yards.' Yes, the sequel was terrible, I know, but the first one was surprisingly funny.
Now enters Elizabeth Hurley as Sara, on whom Joe serves a process as usual. It says that her philandering husband Gordon (Bruce Campbell) wants a divorce, which quite upsets Sara, who in turn offers a lucrative job to Joe - forget his process, and give HER notice to her husband instead, and get lots of money from her. Whether this is legal or not, I don't know, but as a set-up for a comedy, this is adequate.
But something is wrong with the film. Slow storytelling and lazy gags are part of the reasons, but the most damaging is the lack of chemistry between Hurley and Perry. In one scene, Joe and Sara decide to share a motel room for one night, and the situation should be a chance to establish the romantic feeling between them. Instead, their relations remain the same with no emotional change seen between them. Even when they kiss each other, the scene looks still emotionally cold and detached.
Perhaps the actors, whose lack of efforts to be in character, are to be blamed. Or perhaps the stereotyped descriptions of Texas are to be faulted. But probably, I think, it is director's fault Reginald Hudlin (whose previous film was awful `The Ladies Man') who is content with the generic and silly slapstick gags occasionally shown here and there (like Hurley's pants ripped, Perry drinking bad wine and spitting out, etc.) and none of them is really funny. There is one horrible (and extended) gross-out gag scene, one more addition to the tradition of `Let's-humiliate-cows-and-laugh' sequences, in which one of Perry's hands got stuck in the middle of an embarrassing place of the poor animal.
But after all, these terrible moments could be improved (if not totally) by the presence of professional actors, who know a thing or two about comedy, being committed to the job of making laugh. In `Serving Sara' precious supports such as Bruce Campbell and Cedric the Entertainer show that they know their jobs, not the leading actors, especially Hurley. She is beautiful to be sure, but the film needs the down-to-earth personality, not the dead serious beauty, to make everything work as comedy. She once came closest to that kind of quality in `Austin Powers: International man of Mystery.' So why did she step out of the series, and went on to do more duds like this?Not as bad as you'e heard, but not as good as you'd hope. This is a movie that potentially could be really entertaining, but just doesn't work. It's not awful, it is cute, there are a few genuinely funny moments and you won't waste your time watching it, but that's about it. There are a number of reasons for this.
The first is the writing. Besides the skimpy plot, there are some really implausible things going on here, the actors aren't presented with that much to work with, and sometimes it's so jarring that you simply fall out of the suspension of disbelief that you have to have to enjoy any film. A few examples: Matthew Perry wants to buy and run a winery in the Napa Valley. He pursues the opportunity to get a million dollars to accomplish this. A million dollars isn't even remotely enough money to start, let alone run one up there, and he's too dumb to know this. Remember, he couldn't have possibly anticipated how he would get more money at the end. He has no plan to actually get to his winery. Another example is having Elizabeth Hurley prance around in a T-shirt labled "Trailer Trash". There's no purpose to that, I guess it's supposed to be "funny".
Probably the biggest of many plot stupidities is when, because of an improbable lucky break, Perry's character has the opportunity to undo the damage he caused and easily salvage the whole thing if he reacts quickly. What's the first thing he does? Go out and do it before anything can go wrong? No, he phones the "other side" and brags about their mistake and what he's going to do! This is insane!
The direction is seviceable, but in many cases it looks like the actors were on their own, lacking a unified vision of what the film was suposed to be.
As far as the cast goes, Matthew Perry is a drag on the picture. That Elizabeth Hurley falls for him (Wow! what an unexpected development!) is totally unbelievable and illogical. Grateful, yes, but love? Part of this can be blamed on the awful writing. It doesn't help that his character is an unlikable idiot, but part of it is just him. We've seen this problem in other pictures. He has little chemistry with anyone else in the picture. He was good in the small enclosed environment of Friends, but doesn't seem to be able to be that memorable at anything else (ala Kelsey Grammer sans Fraiser). His timing is simply not that good. His chemistry with Elizabeth Hurley is zero.
Elizabeth Hurley: OK, she's still gorgeous. She still shows that deft sense of comedy timing that has appeared in other films. She suffers from lack of direction and from her costar's flatness. She essentially carries the relationship, even though Perry's character is more frantic. Sadly, she is essentially wasted in this picture. She gives as good a performance as can be expected given what she has to work with.
Bruce Campbell. Always a hoot, I wish he got more work. He plays the self-centered rich husband to perfection. There is a problem, though, here with casting. The setup is that he's dumping Elizabeth Hurley for a trophy wife. When you see the actress that is playing his "trophy-elect", you have a major disconnect. A guy with this ego, has a wife who looks like Elizabeth Hurley, who is clearly devoted to him, is going to dump her for the mistress as played here? Nothing against said actress. An egotist like Campbell's character might have an affair with her just because he's who he is, but he already has the "trophy". It doesn't play.
Cedric the Entertainer. Simply put, he steals the move. You smile whenever he's on. His character has got a personality in this movie, something the other principals lack due to writing and possibly direction. He probably just played the character the way he wanted and they just filmed. Heck! The movie would have been more believable (and fun) if he and Perry had swirched roles (Hurley could also have played off him much better).
To sum up, this is a diverting piece of fluff. It's not as awful as some reviewers and critics have said, but it is essentially a pleasant time-filler.
