Other than her role on Friends, the best thing to happen to Jennifer Aniston's career was her marriage and divorce to Brad Pitt. It has been her only connection to the A-list of Hollywood. Once Brad Pitt left Aniston for Angelina Jolie, she became the victim of a home wrecker and an disloyal husband. The tabloids portray Jolie as a man-eater, and Aniston as the girl next door. Unlike her actual movies, the gossip of her romances and breakups have kept her a vital movie star.
Recent case in point is The Bounty Hunter. Aniston and Butler spar as a recently divorced couple who spend time together, as she has jumped bail and he is hired to bring her in. There is little chemistry, and even less spark between them. The movie is set up to have the two fight, argue and lie to get one up on the other. Both actors are playing such one dimensional characters that I never cared what happened to them. Both of course still have feelings for each other, but their careers got in the way....blah blah blah. Although the journey has some shootouts and a mystery to solve, you know exactly where it will all end.
Aniston is a vacuum. She sucks all the life out of her movies. All these years later she is still playing Rachel. She is no longer the ingenue. She is past middle aged, yet she is still playing that romantically confused hot chick, that America fell in love with on television more than a decade ago. Even my 14 year old's first reaction was that, "She looks old." Like all of us, Aniston has aged, but she has never grown as an actress. As such, we never see a character on screen, we just see Aniston desperately trying to have a hit movie.
To be fair, this is not the best written film either. Aniston calls her mother, before deciding whether or not to sleep with her ex-husband. Baranski in a cameo to help put some life into this movie. When Aniston and Butler revisit the hotel where they spent their honeymoon, the proprietors gush over how much they remember them, because they were just the most in-love couple they ever saw. Of course the movie never says why they thought that. The worst plot device is the ridiculous murder/drug mystery. A mere phone call to their best friend would have settled it all.
The romance is weak, and the comedy is sparse. Fallon was the only bright spot in last years dreary, New in Town, and has the best line here. When telling Butler that his boss has gone camping she says he is probably, "...trying to start a fire with two sticks and pure rage." It is never a good sign when a supporting cast has the most memorable line, and it's not that memorable.
Butler is a man's man, and he is playing his stock character here. At least he has action films to fall back on when he finally realizes that he is not meant for romantic comedies. Aniston on the other hand has only her tabloids to help her get through to her next box office bomb. If you think I am being to hard on her then name one film in which she actually contributed anything to that another actress her age could not have? She should actually send Jolie a thank you note for taking Pitt. First because he is obviously a dirt bag for having an affair, and second because it gives her more attention than any of her movies.
