Break the date with simple 'Tad Hamilton'

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

WIN A DATE WITH TAD HAMILTON! PG-13 One-and-a-Half Stars (Poor-to-Fair) A superficial romantic comedy, seemingly designed for 10-to-12-year-old girls. A sweet, small-town girl wins a date with a handsome (though shallow) Hollywood star. Will the shy secret admirer in her hometown finally get the gumption to make his move? Kate Bosworth, Josh Duhamel and Topher Grace co-star for director Robert Luketic. DreamWorks, 96 minutes.

Director Robert Luketic's "Legally Blonde" was also shallow and silly, but benefited from the effervescent Reese Witherspoon. Luketic has no such savior here.

"Tad Hamilton!" is strangely old-fashioned and naive, and built upon tired cliches of Hollywood as the Sodom of the Pacific and rural America as the land of high values and sweet innocence.

Kate Bosworth is Rosalee Futch (even the name is clumsy), a young grocery store clerk at a West Virginia Piggly Wiggly.

Her best friend pushes her to enter a Hollywood contest to win a date with Tad Hamilton (Josh Duhamel), apparently the Ashton Kutcher of this fantasy.

Tad's callow managers are worried about some recent negative publicity about his frequent naughty behavior; they feel a respectful evening out with "the girl next door" will polish his image. Back in West Virginia, the Piggly Wiggly store manager (Topher Grace) continues to pine for Rosalee.

Apparently, he's known her for 22 years — and loved her for nearly all that time. But he's never once given her the slightest indication. He's too shy to be believed.

At any rate, "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!" tells how young Rosalee learns the meaning of sensible values and of true love, while simultaneously discovering that the image of the Hollywood star isn't always accurate. (I'm shocked. Shocked.)

Bosworth projects the scrubbed-clean stereotype of the innocent, small-town girl, while Grace echoes the decency of TV's "Ed," but without the gumption to even go bowling. Duhamel portrays the boorish playboy behavior that fits the actor's stereotype, though he's not very believable when he's required to turn on a dime and become a good bloke in the final act.

Here's the good news, which is admittedly scant:

Nathan Lane and Sean Hayes, who generate the only half-decent laughs in the film, play Hamilton's managers. Without them, I would have broken off this date long before we get to the goodnight kiss.

Rated PG-13 for sex, drugs and language.