(I think I just met my Prince Charming. Seriously.)
CAST: Katherine Heigl, Gerard Butler, Bree Turner, Eric Winter, Nick Searcy, Cheryl Hines, John Michael Higgins.
DIRECTOR: Robert Luketic
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some potentially disturbing telling-it-like-it-is shenanigans straight ahead.
There are certain movie characters that are considered iconic and timeless. Characters with names like Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker, Hannibal Lecter, Ferris Bueller, Catherine Trammell, Clarice Starling, Robin Hood, James Bond, Jason Bourne, The Bride, Maximus Decidius Meridius, Harry Potter, The Terminator, John McClane, Bonnie and Clyde, Harry, Sally, Jake Gittes, Katherine Mulwray, Rosemary Woodhouse, Thomas Crown, Roger Thornhill, and Howard The Duck. Just to name a few. Okay, Howard The Duck wasn’t exactly an iconic character - more like notorious. But he might be on someone's personal list of iconic characters.
Which brings me to my next point: characters that should be iconic but are not well-known enough to considered so. This doesn’t change the fact that they’re utterly awesome, though. Just undiscovered, I guess. Everyone’s “List Of Should-Be-Iconic Characters” varies from person to person, but my own includes, but is not limited to: (1) Roy McAvoy (Kevin Costner) from TIN CUP; (2) Carly Norris (Sharon Stone) from SLIVER; (3) Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) from FANTASTIC FOUR 1 & 2; (4) Jensen (Chris Evans) from THE LOSERS; (5) Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) from THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH; (6) Bancroft (Timothy Dalton) from HAWKS; and (7) Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler) from… THE UGLY TRUTH.
Ah… Mike Chadway. If I ever had a soul brother for a movie character it would be this guy. Loud, lewd, promiscuous, rambunctious, cocky, sexy, profane, smart, spirited, and hilarious - Mike is a man’s man if there ever was one. This guy makes your average he-man look like, well, a thorough pussy. In other words, he just might the Best Drinking Buddy Ever. Unfortunately, one person’s godsend is another person’s demon. In other words, Mike just might also be the Worst Co-Worker Ever to certain uptight, humorless, and repressed individuals.
Abby Richter would be one such individual. So anal-retentive that she micro-manages a blind date’s choice of bottled water over tap water, Abby is one of those chicks that actually walks around with a checklist of what she wants from a potential mate. An actual, physical checklist. Which, to most red-blooded hetero men, makes Abby a hot, large-breasted, but no less deadly human version of a marauding Great White Shark. Actually, that would be unfair to a Great White Shark. At least the shark just puts you out of your misery immediately. With Abby, you’re pretty much guaranteed a slow, painful, agonizing death punctuated by questions like “What are you thinking?” and “What do you think we should name our first kid?”
Anyhow, Mike and Abby meet when he is hired by her TV station boss (Nick Searcy) to try to jumpstart the sagging ratings of their news/variety show. See, Mike has his own cable access show where he can pretty much run free with his wildly controversial and irreverently profane (read: truthful) take on the battle of the sexes. Abby, the TV station’s lead producer, is already familiar with Mike’s, um, body of work. As you can imagine, her opinion of it as about the same as her opinion on nude wrestling in a wading pool full of olive oil. In other words - not her cup of tea, thanks.
Fortunately, no one asks Abby for her opinion when Mike is hired on to the station. Probably nobody cares because she’s such an controlling bitch. So Abby has no choice but to work with someone for whom she has just a little bit less respect for than an empty tampon dispenser during a heavy flow day. Ordered to keep Mike happy - which presumably doesn’t include mint-enhanced blowjobs - Abby pretty much gnashes her teeth at the thought that her once clean and respectable show (read: boring as hell) is now laced with lewd and crude innuendo and shenanigans like semi-nude wrestling in a wading pool full of cherry Jell-O (read: FUN FACTORY!) which causes the uptight husband-and-wife anchors (Cheryl Hines and John Michael Higgins) to practically ravish each other right there in front of the camera (read: PARTAY!).
As you can imagine, the ratings of Abby’s show skyrocket. Seems there’s a huge audience for crude, clever, crudely-clever, and cleverly-crude humor. Thank. God. Ahem. For his part, Mike is enjoying his newfound status as a local celebrity. But he’s enjoying one privilege of his new job that just doesn’t compare to anything else in life: being able to annoy the living crap out of Abby. Which is kind of like shooting tuna in a barrell, because as Mike himself says, she’s “wound like a fucking top.” In other words: so many buttons, so little time...
Things start to change for the better (I guess) when Abby meets a handsome dude named Colin (Eric Winter). For someone as structured and married to checklists as Abby, this guy is a sopping wet dream. To wit, he: (1) is a doctor, (2) has awesome pecs, (3) is a doctor, (4) has a great smile, (5) is a doctor, (6) is a cat lover, (6) is a doctor, (7) has a great tan, (8) is a doctor, (9) and likes to go on romantic picnics. And did I mention he’s a doctor?
Anyhow, Mike smells trouble and quickly tells Abby like it is. Which is that she'll most likely scare Colin off with her control-freak-psycho-bitch-with-a-checklist tendencies. Outraged, Abby tells him that Colin is different from other guys and is kind and caring and really interested in what a woman has to say and not as a piece of meat and he also… Well, we never get to hear the rest of Abby’s description of Colin - because Mike pretty much cuts her off with his bellowing laughter of utter disbelief.
When he (and we) finally recover from that colossal load of fanciful horseshit, he tells Abby that she has a greater chance of getting D.B. Cooper to do a guest stint on her show than getting Colin to fall in love with her. Which might as well be a slap in the face with bag full of soap bars, if you’re a uptight and repressed chick like Abby. Sensing that Mike knows what he’s talking about, she opens up a little (and therefore sets off a blizzard halfway around the world in the Sahara) and wonders what she should do.
Well, Mike didn’t get to be the King of the Poonhounds by being a wallflower. Suffice it to say, he knows a thing or to about what gives a guy a hard-on. And better yet, he knows a thing or two about what keeps that hard-on raging. Before you know it, the Uptight Bitch and the Boorish Asshole make a bet: if Mike’s advice and help bags Colin for Abby, then she stops harping on Mike and lets him do as he pleases on his show. If, however, Colin runs for the hills anyway, then Mike will quit the show and let Abby live in peace - and spinsterhood - for the rest of her life.
Will Mike’s advice work? Will Colin be hooked by the new and improved Abby? Or will he see through the ploy? Does Abby really like Colin? Or will she realize that her “checklist” is a big load of hooey? Will she start to develop respect for Mike and his wisdom, however crude and lewd? Will Mike start to develop respect for Abby and her values, however boring and banal? Or will they go right back to sniping at each other like a couple of piranhas that haven’t been fed in three days? Will they - GASP! - fall in love?
And most importantly: will Mike see the light and ditch Abby and her show for a stint as my co-critic on this blog? Will he? Will he?
Now that would be a match made in heaven - or hell. At least we’d have fun - and I wouldn’t nag him. Unlike Abby, who must have a couple of Gold Medals in her closet for it.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: Some folks will think “I can’t believe he gave THE UGLY TRUTH four stars out of five.” I don’t blame them. See, I didn’t hold out much hope for this film, either. The trailers looked okay enough, and Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler are certainly attractive and talented. But the movie didn’t look any different from a hundred other “odd couple” romantic comedies where two totally different people first hate each other’s guts - then gradually fall in love.
But when I actually watched the film, it happened. I fell for it. Very much the same way that Mike and Abby fall for each other: unexpectedly (on their part, anyway) but not unwillingly. And the chief reason is Mike and Abby themselves. Heigl and Butler manage to take two roles that were just a couple of nuances away from being stereotypes - and make them seem fresh and real. And the chemistry between the two of them is so explosive you can almost see the molecules burning in the air.
Katherine Heigl played an unlucky-in-love character in 27 DRESSES (2007), and Abby has a similar history. But while Jane from that earlier film was actually fairly laid-back, Abby in this film is far more high-strung and brittle. Professionally, Abby is cool and competent. Around men, though, she turns into a controlling nag. But Heigl manages to, at first, hint at the mischievous streak under Abby’s “Type-A” surface - then outright display it later on when Mike’s influence and advice take hold on her. The result is a heroine who is believably uptight but also believably spontaneous underneath. Heigl makes Abby’s transformation both seamless and funny.
But THE UGLY TRUTH’s ace up its sleeve is Gerard Butler as Mike Chadway. Mostly managing to suppress his Scottish accent, Butler makes Mike into a truly memorable character: someone louder and larger than life, but also idiosyncratic and human at the same time. He has some profanely clever lines that will bust you up. The script could’ve easily played Mike as a one-note pig, but it gives him enough dimension to keep the character from being an obnoxious stereotype. As Mike and Abby’s unexpected friendship deepen, you can see the effect it has on his emotions. Watch for the scene outside Abby’s hotel room wherein Mike struggles with his realization that he wants to be more than just a friend or a fuck buddy. Butler gives the character a tentative and surprisingly fragile quality that is endearing. And then watch for the scene wherein Mike is interviewed on a national TV show and is asked about who broke his heart. Without saying a single word, Butler’s expression conveys Mike’s secret broken heart - and just like that, we figure out why the character is the way he is.
Heigl and Butler also get stellar support from the actors around them. Cheryl Hines and John Michael Higgins are hilarious as the bickering anchors who slowly fall under Mike’s spell - and end up falling in lust with each other because of him. Bree Turner is a nice presence as Abby’s best friend, Joy. It’s nice to see a romantic comedy with a “best friend” character who is just as attractive as the heroine. Turner also has some nicely tart lines. Finally, Eric Winter as Abby’s crush, Colin, is appropriately handsome and deliberately bland - perhaps to contrast him starkly with the much more dynamic Mike. I would invoke the LLT syndrome here, but there was never meant to be a true triangle between Mike, Abby, and Colin. Colin’s just there as a reason to get Abby and Mike to conspire with one another - and not to give Mike a run for his money.
Because let’s face it - any guy competing against Mike Chadway would have his work cut out for him. And he’s one-third of what makes THE UGLY TRUTH soar. The other two-thirds is Katherine Heigl and their sizzling connection with one another.
Now that's chemistry...
