Breakin' All the Rules

    1 of 1 2 of 1

      Starring Jamie Foxx and Morris Chestnut. Rated PG.

      Although devoid of any real laughs, an attribute that is usually fatal to a comedy, Breakin' All the Rules is an admirable, though idiosyncratic, experiment.

      The movie is written and directed by Daniel Taplitz, who appears to be set on becoming a master of the thematically ambitious romantic comedy. His previous directorial effort, Commandments (1997), paired Aidan Quinn and Courteney Cox against a backdrop of Christian blasphemy, as Quinn systemically tried to break each of the Ten Commandments. For Breakin', Taplitz attempts to employ the conventions of drawing-room comedy: false identities, thwarted sexual shenanigans, acerbic patter, and the big they-all-meet-in-the-same-room finale when truths are revealed, plans are reversed, and justice is poeticized. He also tackles the urban-comedy genre, which he acknowledges purely through casting rather than concessions to slapstick or stereotype íƒ   la the upcoming Soul Plane.

      Jamie Foxx, still trying to locate his leading-man vehicle after his big-screen breakthrough in 1999's Any Given Sunday, is cast as the hyperverbal lead: a contributing editor of a lad magazine whose unceremonious dumping by his fiancée inspires him to pen a best-selling manual of suggested improvements for the relationship-severing process.

      Foxx's character obtains his insights by boning up on the latest management theories regarding employee severance, the unpalatable task having been foisted upon him by his passive boss, played by Peter MacNicol. Meanwhile, MacNicol's own fiancée, an amoral gold digger (Jennifer Esposito), has her eye caught by a seductive player (Morris Chestnut) who happens to be engaged to a gorgeous girl (Gabrielle Union) who gradually falls in love with the writer.

      The interplay between the five characters is frenzied but shapeless. The film doesn't quite establish who everyone is before embarking on making them seem what they aren't. It's less a funny movie than a movie where things are said that were obviously supposed to be brilliant, not unlike this review.

      Comments