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Perry, Hurley can't overcome the blandness of 'Sara'
Elizabeth Hurley and Matthew Perry in 'Serving Sara'
Paramount Pictures
Neither successful nor dislikable, "Serving Sara" perspires so much you want to hose it down, send it home for a fresh draft, some recasting and a lot of reshooting, and tell it to check in again refurbished in about 18 months.
It's one of those movies that tries to camouflage its lack of grace and wit by turning every character into a cartoon and broadening every bit of business.
"Serving Sara" seems to have a yen to emulate the sophisticated comedies of old in which a guy like William Powell and a gal like Myrna Loy teamed up and went on the lam and squared off against everyone else in the picture.
But somewhere between the screenplay by big-screen neophytes Jay Scherick and David Ronn and director Reginald Hudlin ("Boomerang," "House Party"), the desperation shows.
You know they're afraid of running out of gas when they build a whole extraneous sequence around a bull's flatulence and sexual lethargy and the insistence of three farmers on the leading man reaching deep into the bull's colon.
Two of the three central characters are competitors in a profession relatively fresh to movies. They're process servers, which means they track down people and hand them legal papers such as subpoenas.
The rivals here are the unshaven Joe (Matthew Perry) and the bumbling Tony (Vincent Pastore, a doughy actor we've all enjoyed in a hundred mob roles).
Both work for the loud-red-suited Ray (Cedric the Entertainer), who seems to have played all of his scenes in a single small office and mostly alone.
When sleazy Texas rancher Gordon Moore (Bruce Campbell) decides to squeeze his to-a-manor-born wife Sara (Elizabeth Hurley) out of their marriage and professional partnership by divorcing her, and then keeping house with cute Kate (Amy Adams), he hires Ray to put a process server on the job.
Ray turns both Joe and Tony loose, figuring one is bound to catch and serve Sara. (Thus, the title.)
Can there be any doubt she and Joe will become allies and that Joe will try to serve papers to Gordon instead?
The film never gets beyond a series of mildly amusing, always just middling, set pieces such as falling down an airport baggage chute, dodging a goon, hiding out at a fleabag motel and, of course, invading the bull.
The guys insult each other a lot in that minor-league, nothing-else-is-working mode that screenwriters slip into when they don't know enough about the characters or professions to inject the comedy and romance with veracity.
For no apparent reason, except that Perry wants to seem manic and funny, Joe does a lot of wacky shtick. Like everything else in "Serving Sara," he doesn't fail, but nothing flies.
The key to much of the plot is the precise moment at which papers are served, a point that assumes a manufactured importance in the final reel.
If "Serving Sara" is remembered at all by mid-October, it will be for Hurley, who does nothing of consequence here except run around in a ludicrous outfit.
She has nevertheless the most alluring combination of classic good looks and beguiling British accent since Jacqueline Bisset ignited in "Two for the Road" 35 years ago.
| 'Serving Sara' |
Director: Reginald Hudlin
Stars: Matthew Perry, Elizabeth Hurley, Vincent Pastore
MPAA Rating: PG-13, for crude humor, sexual content and language
