The Bounty Hunter

Director: Andy Tennant; Screenwriter: Sarah Thorp; Starring: Gerard Butler, Jennifer Aniston, Christine Baranski, Jason Sudeikis, Natalie Morales; Running time: 106 mins; Certificate: 12A

A romantic comedy that riffs on Midnight Run, The Bounty Hunter pits Jennifer Aniston's career-driven reporter Nicole Hurley against her boorish, gambling ex-husband Milo Boyd (Gerard Butler). When Nicole dodges a court appearance (for driving into a police horse) and finds her bail rescinded, the broke and out-of-luck Milo takes on the task of bringing in Nicole for the reward money. As the pursuit unfolds, Nicole continues to investigate an old suicide case that looks suspiciously like a murder.

Directed by Andy Tennant, who last helmed the risible Fool's Gold, the film blends romance (for the girls), action (for boys) and murder mystery (to bind the other two together) but ends up never satisfying in any of the genres it tries to hit. Tennant has generously described the film as a "take-no-prisoners marital comedy" and "subversive and funny". He's perhaps viewing it through rose-tinted glasses, because there's little that's surprising or going against the Hollywood grain here. Inevitably the story plays out exactly how you think it will as the parted exes begin to rebuild their relationship and fall for each other all over again. This bickering couple shtick has been done much better (and more subversively) elsewhere, notably in The War Of The Roses with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner's combustible relationship. The Bounty Hunter ultimately feels like a feather-weight Mr & Mrs Smith, hardly an example of a glittering blockbuster in the first place.

As Butler finds Aniston constantly slipping out of his handcuffs, the exasperation never builds to a point where either actor starts to take risks with their character. Butler (origin of accent undetermined) is again playing a louche brute who we ultimately must find affable, while Aniston carries the mannerisms (hair fiddling, puzzled exclamations of "huh?") she's had since her Friends days. Once primed to inherit Meg Ryan's rom-com queen crown, Aniston is finding herself in increasingly middling work. She may end up making a great movie at some point, but you feel it'll be almost completely by accident or through Sharon Stone in Casino-style good fortune. There's no reason why the former Rachel Green couldn't have taken on the Sandra Bullock part in The Blind Side and done a decent job, for instance, but moving out of the well-paid comfort zone doesn't seem to interest her.

The Bounty Hunter is another largely forgettable, factory-line girl-falling-out-with-then-making-up-with-boy vehicle with designs on hoovering up cinemagoers' cash. Really, though, it's not worth it - the stars aren't working at full throttle, there's not much sexiness to their relationship and the action scenes aren't staged with much energy or momentum. Still, it could be much worse, it could be Old Dogs…


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