What a surprise. Men will doing anything for the right woman.
We aren’t just talking about opening doors, getting flowers or pulling the chair out - that’s chivalry. “Serving Sara” is spinelessness.
Joe Tyler (Matthew Perry), a New York City process server, finds himself serving divorce papers to radiant vixen and Texas native Sara Moore (Elizabeth Hurley).
But money and politics are woven into the plot.
Moore is served first, meaning she has to go to Texas for divorce proceedings before a judge who is less likely to give any severance package than if the hearing were in New York.
With the look and a little thigh, Moore gets Tyler to pretend he never served her papers.
In exchange, he gets 10 percent of a possible $10 million settlement.
Do the math. What good would the story be if Tyler wasn’t risking a little more than his dignity?
Well, when his boss finds out he jumped ship, he is fired.
Along the way, this romantic comedy actually had its bright spots.
The sucker punches taken at gun-toting, convict-frying Texans were witty and well-aimed. Appearances by Jerry Stiller and Vincent Pastore brought talent to the screen, not just a pretty face.
And by looking at those two, I mean it.
Keeping in mind “Serving Sara” was a romantic comedy, the story wasn’t built for a deep plot.
The focus was on the characters’ growing love for each other and a joke here and there. There wasn’t much room for a thicker story.
While “Serving Sara” hasn’t legitimized Perry as a Hollywood action hero, his sharp tongue put him a half step closer to “Die Hard’s” John McClane from his Chandler Bing persona on the NBC comedy “Friends.”
The rest of his performance wasn’t new. His role as an insecure spaz on the television show carried over to “Serving Sara,” just as it did in “Three to Tango” and “The Whole Nine Yards.”
And if Hurley negotiated the way she acted for the film, she could have been looking at a bigger payday.
Her character was well played, but to convey the message that guys will do anything for a woman, a lot of talented actresses must have been booked during auditions for the film.
Elizabeth “Marvin Gardens” Hurley is talented, but not worth the same as a Julia “Boardwalk” Roberts. When I see Hurley in a drama about a battered spouse, we’ll talk.
There was something missing. There was no clear-cut winner for the protagonist award for the character who changes.
It wasn’t clear why Moore was married in the first place, and what her reasons were for trying to get her husband’s money and using her body to do it.
And just when you think Tyler had changed, he hadn’t. He still lived at the whim of Moore. Did anyone grow from their experience?
In a business where timing and money are everything, the release date could have been pushed back to Feb. 14.
Releasing a film on a Monday in late August won’t get the big dollars. And why not Valentine’s Day? What better day than the very holiday when guys bend over backward to do things for women they don’t normally do?
And why do they do it?
Sex.
This movie has cracked the code. Tell the alpha female, the secret’s out.
Men will give up a hand in any relationship at the suggestion of a woman.
