As research for her next column, women’s mag journalist Andie Anderson (Hudson) aims to pick up a guy in a bar and then drive him away, employing the entire arsenal of bad-girlfriend tricks. But Andie sets her sights on playboy ad exec Benjamin Barry (McConaughey), who has previously bet co-workers that he can date a woman for 10 days (that’s nine days longer than his record). It’s meant to be a hoot and a holler, the extremes to which both go, and some fine moments are extracted from the gross theatrics of the two. But if you caught How to’s trailer then you’ve already seen every one of those moments. What didn’t make the cut is a leaden lineup of set-pieces, none funny enough, nor nasty enough, to make the film’s frankly brutal premise zing.
Opened 02/07/03