A Guy Thing---- a bad thing....

© MGM

Title: A Guy Thing (C-)
Release Year: 2003
Actors: Jason Lee, Julia Stiles, Selma Blair, Lochlyn Munro, Thomas Lennon
Director: Chris Koch
Story and Screenplay: Pete Schwaba / Matt Tarses et al.
Cinematography: Robbie Greenberg
Producer: Roger Bimbaum et al.
Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer

There’s something interesting about Jason Lee and Julia Stiles that enticed me to see this movie. Selma Blair playing the prudish girlfriend again (Re: Legally Blonde), I thought was just the icing on cake. What I didn’t know is that the cake was all icing but no chiffon.

The story revolves around Paul (Lee), an incredibly stupid character who happens to be also so nice and afraid of taking risks. After his bachelor party, he woke-up the next day in bed with another woman named Becky (Stiles). She’s a happy-go-lucky lass who happens to the ex-girlfriend of a steroid dependent police officer. Things get crazy as he found out that the woman he thought he slept with is actually the cousin of her fiancée Karen (Blair). Now, he tries to find ways to keep everything a secret from his girl while at the same time escape the jealous ex-boyfriend from butchering him. And the audience is left with the arduous challenge of who can stand this movie longer.


© MGM

When you have a not so exceptional concept, one must make sure to find a way to recompense through the screenplay. If the screenplay is also not that great, then at least hire a great director to add some much needed flavor. In case there’s still nothing special about the director, hire great actors. And if still no luck, just make an animated movie. At least in a way it’s just proper to ask for people’s money to reimburse for the effort.

I’m not saying that the actors in this movie were bad, cuz God knows how much I adore Julia Stiles. In fact, I think the acting is the strength of this movie. If not for the three, people won’t even waste a nanosec of their time to see this flick. Jason and Julia’s chemistry actually worked which prevailed me from trashing this movie to permanent oblivion. However, the number of times I actually felt delighted by this movie was like a hairpin in a haystack. The haystack is the incredibly maddening minutes where the characters dwell on stupid charade of immense excess.


© MGM

An ordinary concept, a baloney script and a blue-collar director, now what does that spell??? An astonishing travesty that can cause one to kill himself or others. I speak for everyone, this ain’t just a guy thing, even girls would feel exactly the same way I feel about this movie. Now, seeing this movie, that, is a bad thing.

Grading Sheet:
Story – 10%
Screenplay – 9%
Direction / Execution – 10%
Acting – 15%
Technical Aspect – 12%
Total: 56% = C-