My Best Friend's Girl

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Having seen Dane Cook perform his comedy live in person, I can confirm that the man has an ability for pant-dampening hilarity. However, anyone who has failed to catch his stand-up show and was judging him purely on his films would have a hard time believing that - and this particularly crude mess is no different. Not that there's anything wrong with being crude; it just needs to be funny as well, and unfortunately My Best Friend's Girl rarely is, despite the best efforts of a game Kate Hudson. The plot sees Jason Biggs play another overly affable loser, who is in love with Hudson's delightful Alexis. But he's an annoying geek, and thus, can't pull her - so he hires his best mate Tank (Cook), to take her on the worst date of her life, so she'll go crawling back into his arms having realised what a nice guy he is. See, Tank makes a living out of being the worst date of a girl's life so they'll go back to their recently-jilted exes (apparently there's good money in that sort of thing). When he meets Alexis, sparks fly, and he finds himself falling for her. Not without its moments, the laughs here are nonetheless few-and-far-between, as Cook portrays an edgier character than he has in previous films (we know this because he smokes and curses), while Hudson essentially slums it, and feels out of place with all the knob jokes. She's been in worse films, sure - but she's far too sweet for this type of carry on, despite embracing the filth as much as conceivably possible. The main problem here is the banal, lazy direction and a script that once again fails to utilise the talents of Cook. The man has got charm, but the script never gives him a chance to display it, and director Deutch hasn't got a clue how to deal with him. It's said that the montage is a lazy way to tell a story, and any film that involves one is generally devoid of a certain kind of quality. Well, My Best Friend's Girl has five montages, which is really inexcusable and shows a helmer with a complete lack of understanding of the material, however shoddy it may have been to begin with. Go see Zack and Miri Make A Porno instead.