Bill

Bill casts Aaron Eckhart as the title character, a bank executive who’s thrust into a mid-life crisis after he learns that his wife (Elizabeth Banks’ Jess) is having an affair with a smarmy newsman (Timothy Olyphant’s Chip Johnson). There’s little doubt that Bill‘s mild success is due almost entirely to Eckhart’s expectedly ingratiating and flat-out engrossing performance, as the actor does a fantastic job of turning Bill into a sympathetic figure one can’t help but root for. The increasingly silly machinations of the film’s screenplay lends the proceedings a forgettable vibe that’s certainly lamentable, and there’s ultimately little doubt that scripter Melisa Wallack, who co-directs with Bernie Goldmann, simply ran out of things for Bill to do (how else to explain such needless sequences as one in which the character gets stoned in a department store?) The lack of a consistent tone is exacerbated by a flabby third act that just seems to go on and on, with the end result a movie that’s basically entertaining yet entirely forgettable.

**1/2 out of ****