Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler are wasted in the paper-thin plot about a bounty hunter, Milo, who is given the unexpected and joyous duty of bringing his ex-wife, Nicole, to jail because of her missed court date. The movie is surprisingly mean-spirited with the couple’s interactions. I don’t know what their relationship was like when they were together, but it couldn’t justify the treatment that Milo gives Nicole during the film. He stuffs her into the trunk of his car, steals her credit card, and even erases her TiVo—the rare funny moment of the film. The newspaper investigation that Nicole is involved in is unnecessarily hard-to-follow and really only there as a space holder because the screenwriters couldn’t come up with something better.
Andy Tennant, the director of the hilarious rom-com "Hitch," must have been uninspired by this screenplay because "The Bounty Hunter" is far from his best work. Of course, the marketers don’t want you to know that Tennant was also responsible for the equally unbelievable and painful to watch "Fool’s Gold." Whether Tennant is able to break out of his recent slump depends on if he can say no to such garbage in the future. As for Butler, his best work has been in action movies like "300" or as a sympathetic cameo in "P.S. I Love You." These bastard characters he’s playing in romantic comedies just do not work for his image, nor do they work within the context of the film. As for Aniston, she really needs to stretch as an actress beyond the same character she’s been playing since TV’s "Friends." While we like Aniston generally, we’d also like to see her try something else.
Rated PG-13 for sexual content including suggestive comments, language and some violence.
