'A Guy Thing' is limp, predictable farce

By Marshall Fine
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

A GUY THING (Rated PG-13 for profanity, violence, sexual humor) Stars: A straight-arrow wakes up the morning after his bachelor party to find a stranger in his bed in this limp, predictable farce. Starring Jason Lee, Julia Stiles, Selma Blair. Directed by Chris Koch. MGM, 101 minutes.

Which is like saying that, with plastic surgery and a different personality, Joe Pesci could be Brad Pitt.

In either case, it remains only a diverting hypothetical. The reality is that "A Guy Thing," is a watered-down sex farce without enough sex or farce.

With his slim ski nose and cashew-shaped profile, Jason Lee looks like the young Bob Hope. He's miscast here as Paul, a timid magazine ad salesman who is one week away from marrying the boss's daughter.

But the morning after his bachelor party, this straight arrow wakes up next to a stranger, a blonde named Becky (Julia Stiles) who was one of the dancers at the party. Although nothing happened, Paul is overcome with guilt, even more so when he discovers that Becky is a cousin of his fiancee, Karen (Selma Blair).

Needless to say, complications ensue. If they didn't, there wouldn't be a movie.

But director Chris Koch and his squad of writers can't twist this plot in ways that seem either surprising or logical, opting for arbitrary and capricious instead. The scant laughs come from the film's basest material: extended jokes about diarrhea, a case of crab lice and the homoerotic nature of ballroom dancing.

Director Koch is fortunate to have comic Larry Miller in a small role where his beady-eyed slow burn can be put to particularly good use. Otherwise, there's no bite to most of the humor; the best ideas must have been neutered in committee.

Lee is funny playing wisecracking roles, as he's done for Kevin Smith. But he should leave the sensitive-guy humiliation comedies to Ben Stiller. Blair looks like a young Gilda Radner, which just proves how deceiving looks can be. Stiles has a spunky wit that transcends the thin screenplay.

You'll know how "A Guy Thing" ends after you see the trailer, let alone the first 15 minutes. If someone had injected a heavy dose of Farrelly brothers' rudeness, it might have been more than sporadically amusing.

Rated PG-13 for profanity, violence, sexual humor.