Review: Catch And Release

While a woman tries to deal with the death of her fiancé, she discovers that he had kept a few dirty little secrets from her. While trying to move on with her life, she moves in with her dead fiancé’s best friends for reasons of comfort, where a stupid love triangle and very “light” comedy ensue.

In the words of the great Charlie Brown: “Good grief!”. I see why January is flush month for movies. I didn’t have that many expectations going into this film, but I don’t think I would ever watch this movie again…even if it was on T.V.! I don’t even know where to begin. Maybe this will sum it up… it started sort of slow, continued slow and went absolutely nowhere after that. It wasn’t upbeat and you didn’t get to know any of the characters and as a result, you just didn’t really care about any of them.

Jennifer Garner plays Gray Wheeler, the grieving fiancé. I can’t put my finger on it, but I get the feeling Garner should stick to T.V. I just don’t believe that she can carry a movie on her own. She’s cute in a realistic way, but not in a Hollywood way. I dunno. Her acting as the mourning girlfriend wasn’t anything to write home about either. Her chemistry with one of her fiancé’s buddies (I don’t want to say who, but it’s pretty evident from the trailer) seemed really forced and just wasn’t believable. You end up wondering why they’re hooking up, as it just doesn’t feel right.

The real highlight of the film were the scenes with Kevin Smith who plays Sam, one of Gray’s dead fiancé’s friends. For the record, I am a big fan of Mr. Smith, but even if I wasn’t, anyone could appreciate his much needed comedy relief in this film. As much as I love his movies, maybe he should take a little break and play in some more films because he really has something. His timing and delivery were dead-on! I was laughing at all of his scenes and so was the rest of the audience. His scenes with Juliette Lewis were especially funny. Loved the massage sequence! You’re a funny man, Mr. Smith and it’s time you showed that to the rest of the world! Had Smith not been in this film, it would have sucked a thousand times more.

The rest of the characters were pretty lame and one dimensional. Timothy Olyphant is a good actor, but I think the way they wrote him in the story didn’t work. One minute he’s an asshole, the next minute he’s a “nice misunderstood” guy. I didn’t buy it! Even the other friend was barely noticeable and I don’t even know why they wrote him into the story as you didn’t give two shits about the guy and you’re supposed to feel sorry for him. Whatever!

Furthermore, I never knew where this story was going, although I would at some points, but then they’d switch it up again, so I was lost once more. Did I mention that it was sloooow? This was supposed to be a comedy/romance. There were only two people who were funny throughout the whole picture and the romance wasn’t believable. I guess what I’m trying to say is that this movie was badly written and didn’t flow properly.

With the exception of Kevin Smith, this movie really blew! It’s really amazing how some movies get made these days. Hopefully down the line someone can cut all of Kevin Smith’s parts out of this movie to make a compilation of them and put them on YouTube! Trust me you’ll enjoy the compilation of his scenes more than this entire film!

— by Tim
Goernert