The Bounty Hunter

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Gerard Butler should probably stay as far away from the romcom genre as possible, as the actor has thus far shown a lamentable penchant for selecting material of an exceedingly (and disappointingly) run-of-the-mill nature. The Bounty Hunter casts Butler as Milo Boyd, a cop-turned-bounty-hunter who happily agrees to retrieve his feisty ex-wife (Jennifer Aniston’s Nicole Hurley) after she skips out on a bail hearing – with his ongoing efforts at bringing her in safely inevitably complicated by a host of progressively violent outside forces. The well-worn nature of the movie’s plot is generally not as problematic as its sitcom-like execution, as director Andy Tennant, working from a script by Sarah Thorp, has infused the proceedings with a fast-paced yet thoroughly pedestrian sensibility that inevitably grows tiresome. The central characters’ relentless bickering, as well as their lack of chemistry together, ensures that the viewer has no real interest in seeing Milo and Nicole reconcile their differences, while the progressively tedious storyline, which boasts dirty cops, dangerous mobsters, and comically inept henchmen, proves instrumental in cementing the film’s transformation from an affable timewaster to an interminable waste of time. It subsequently goes without saying that some judicious trimming could only have helped matters, as there’s little doubt that The Bounty Hunter ultimately comes off as a perfectly watchable 80-minute romantic comedy trapped within the confines of a bloated two-hour mess – which is a shame, really, given the strength of Butler’s expectedly charismatic work here (and this is to say nothing of Jason Sudeikis’ scene-stealing turn as Nicole’s tenacious coworker).

** out of ****