This movie follows the trend, actually more like �jumps on the bandwagon�, of the craze of rude, crude comedy-romance movies kicked off by the immortal American Pie. Josh Hartnett, complete with bad haircut, takes the lead as a web designer who can pull women like Michael Jordan hits slam-dunks. Finding himself addicted to sex trying to get over his last serious relationship, he decides to give up sex, and all things related, for lent. That�s right, forty days and forty nights without doing the baaaad-thang! Then typically, he meets the girl of his dreams, cue hysteria.
It�s a good premise, an original take on the �genre�, a no-sex sex-comedy. You have Josh as the �hunk-a-hunk-a-burnin-love� (lucky sod) and the wonderful Shannyn Sossamon (A Knight's Tale) as the love interest. Throw in a bunch of rag-tag co-employees desperate for a bit of nooky and plenty of gorgeous women, and you have the recipe for a great movie. Except it isn�t so great.
The opportunity is wasted in style, the movie takes a long, long, time to gather pace and humour. I found myself more agog with the sheer scale of nudity and graphic scenes for a 15-rated movie, than the �snigger along� slapstick. The romance side of the plot has been done to death and you need a lot of faith to get anything out of the movie.
That said, there are some peaches (no pun intended) in there, the betting system has women trying everything in the book to break the celibacy barrier, and collect their winnings. Viagara-spiked drinks and Josh trying ever so hard to keep his soldier from standing to attention make this actually worth some of your time. Did I mention it has lots of gorgeous women in the nip too? |
