The crimes committed by the confused gross-out rom-com My Best Friend's Girl are myriad.
They include ...
* Resting a movie on the acting ability of "viral phenomenon" Dane Cook, who has mannerisms rather than chops.
* Playing the signature hit by The Cars -- which doubles tritely as the movie's title -- on a seemingly endless loop in the first act. I once liked that song. Now I never want to hear it again.
* And contributing to the freefall of Kate Hudson's career. On the surface, given Cook's loud, cocky, "ya-gotta-love-me/join-the-Dane-Train!" standup stage presence, you'd think he'd finally found his niche playing a self-proclaimed a--hole who discovers a way to make money treating women like dirt.
The problem is the movie can't seem to follow its own internal logic. Early on, unlikely ladies' man Tank Turner (Cook) is seen in a bar lashing out at two women, a recent mother he derides as fat, and her friend whom he assesses as having an eating disorder.
"You're an a--hole," the skinny one says. (The word is used often enough to inspire a drinking game).
"Then leave," he tells her. She doesn't. In fact, they're soon in bed together at the apartment he shares with his nerdlinger cousin Dustin (Jason Biggs).
So the lesson is, women like being emotionally abused. Except when they don't. See, Tank specializes in accepting money from recently-dumped guys to take their exes out on hell-dates, and send them screaming back to the guys they left.
It's a subtle quandary, one someone such as Neil Labute could crunch into a fascinating psychodrama with every ounce of his misogynistic muse.
But in the hands of a newbie writer and a director who specializes in sequels, it's just a ball that bounces aimlessly until somebody improbably ends up with somebody (I wonder why they don't advertise movies like this with, "From the maker of Grumpier Old Men".)
The key plot point -- Dustin hiring Tank to get him back with Alexis (Kate Hudson) -- is the squirmiest of all.
Which one does she belong with. Is she a take-charge girl or a victim? It's as if the writers spun a wheel-of-personae and ended it there.
The only mild-funny stuff is when Cook really lets his inner a--hole fly -- the apex being his total destruction of a wedding.
He does give good a--hole, I'll give him that.
(This film is rated 18-A)
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