Perhaps you heard about the new heavily advertised romantic comedy called “Did You Hear About The Morgans”. Well it’s not the least bit romantic, and for a comedy, it’s no laughing matter.
Oddly enough, the script is really very funny. I noticed quite a few funny jokes when I wasn’t distracted by people walking out. But nobody in the audience was laughing. The reason was sloppy direction, bad editing and lazy performances. The goods are in the script, but not up on the screen.
This was a supreme disappointment following the triumphant return to romantic comedy for Hugh Grant in “Music & Lyrics” in which he worked with the same director Marc Lawrence.
This was a supreme disappointment following the triumphant return to romantic comedy for Hugh Grant in “Music & Lyrics” in which he worked with the same director Marc Lawrence.
Here, Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker play a married couple who are separated yet are still very much married to the city in which they live, New York. On a date meant as an attempt to reconcile, they witness a murder. The FBI must now put them in the witness protection program, change their identities and hide them in Ray, Wyoming.
This fish-out-of-water formula is usually very funny when someone is taken from the big city and then suddenly moved to the country. The perfect example of this sort of movie, when it works, is “My Cousin Vinny”. When it fails, well, did you hear about The Morgans?
Like I said, the jokes are there, but their delivery is off. Hugh Grant’s usually reliable comic timing is quite absent. He seems uncomfortable throughout the entire film. He appears visually stiff and whines a lot without ever directly looking at whomever he’s meant to be speaking to.
Like I said, the jokes are there, but their delivery is off. Hugh Grant’s usually reliable comic timing is quite absent. He seems uncomfortable throughout the entire film. He appears visually stiff and whines a lot without ever directly looking at whomever he’s meant to be speaking to.
The supporting actors do what they can to try and salvage this movie. Wilford Brimley and Mary Steenburgen are excellent. Steenburgen gets the biggest laugh when she is buying guns at a discount store and gets compared to Sarah Palin. But their roles are too small to make this film anything better than a simple time-waster.
DVD Double Feature: After seeing The Morgans argue bitterly with each other for two hours, you might think that Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker have no screen chemistry at all. But that wasn’t the case in the excellent 1996 medical thriller “Extreme Measures”. Grant plays a doctor who discovers a sinister conspiracy at the hospital where he works. His best friend, a nurse at the hospital, is played hauntingly by Sarah Jessica Parker. In this film, the pair have a chemistry together that sizzles.
