Because it is so obviously some kind of homage to, or a rip off of, Julia Roberts' Pretty Woman, Debra Messing's romantic comedy The Wedding Date should have been called Hunky Man.
Messing is Kat Ellis, a successful New York career woman who's still aching from being dumped by boyfriend Jeffrey (Jeremy Sheffield), who inexplicably and suddenly ended their seven-year relationship two years earlier.
Kat's younger stepsister Amy (Amy Adams) is marrying her dimwitted suitor Edward (Jack Davenport) and wants Kat to be her maid-of-honour.
The biggest problem is that Edward's best friend Jeffrey will be the best man.
Kat can't let him see she has failed to find a new boyfriend, so she hires Nick Mercer (Dermot Mulroney), a top Manhattan male escort, to be her date for the wedding in London.
Though she starts out hating herself for stooping to this trick and Nick for being so studly and arrogant, Kat naturally falls for him.
That someone as insecure and needy as Kat falls for Nick is understandable, but that Nick should fall for Kat is such a huge leap of faith it needs much more of an explanation.
The Wedding Date is an interesting setup with no real payoff because it's such a given from the first time Kat and Nick meet on the plane to London that they'll fall madly in love.
There is one genuinely unexpected twist in the whole wedding fiasco that's meant to minimize the morality of hiring a male escort.
The script by first-time screenwriter Dana Fox borrows cliches from everything from Friends and My Best Friend's Wedding to Four Weddings and a Funeral.
It's a shame so much time was spent on Messing's makeup and wardrobe and so little on the dialogue and jokes.
As Kat's overbearing mother, Holland Taylor recycles her role as Charlie Sheen's mother on Two and a Half Men.
Mulroney is the best thing about the movie.
It's unfortunate he's only used as window dressing when he could have given the picture the edge it so desperately needs.
(This film is rated PG.)
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