My Best Friend's Girl

Stars: Dane Cook, Kate Hudson, Jason Biggs, Alec Baldwin, Lizzy Caplan, Diora Baird, Faye Grant, Jenny Mollen, Riki Lindhome

Director: Howard Deutch

A ferociously foul-mouthed, mean-spirited and consistently vile romcom whose script is little more than a stream of obscenities strung together. The plot - never remotely rooted in real life from the moment Hudson yells, in response to Biggs' declaration of love in a crowded restaurant: 'We haven't even had sex' - has the self-admiring Cook as a self-confessed 'asshole' who is deliberately obnoxious to dates in order to send them scurrying back to their exes, who have paid Cook to be as repulsive as possible (improbable in itself).

When flatmate Biggs hires him to do his schmuck act with Hudson, the two are inredeemably attracted (no, you guessed) in spite of Cook telling her: 'You're a two-bagger. I have to wear a bag on my head in case yours breaks'. This is about as funny (and sophisticated) as the dialogue gets.

Nothing, however, is less likely in which Cook, convinced he's not good enough for Hudson, commits relationship suicide by being sick on the bride and groom, dropping his trousers as he propositions the bride's mother and doing other things too disgusting even to mention. Kate forgives him of course (as you would).

One good sight gag, where a 'religious' restaurant serves pizzas in the shape of a cross, can't begin to compensate for the rest.

(*Cut by 67 seconds to avoid an 18 certificate. One shudders to think what might have been in the missing footage).

David Quinlan

USA 2008. UK Distributor: Lionsgate. Colour by FotoKem.
100 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 3.

Review date: 23 Nov 2008