Director Garry Marshall massacres “Valentine’s Day”
By Scott Marks
SDUN Film Critic
Valentine’s Day (2010)
Directed by Garry Marshall
Written by Katherine Fugate from a story by Katherine Fugate, Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein
Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, George Lopez, Hector Elizondo, Shirley MacLaine, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Jamie Foxx, Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, etc.
Rating: 0 out of 5
The good news is you won’t catch the clap after watching Garry Marshall’s insidious strain of cinematic VD. The bad news there will be no clapping when it’s over.
Marshall incorporates the presence (not to be confused with talent) of a dozen or so of Hollywood’s most physically perfect specimens and encases them in a multi-character romantic comedy that is so ineptly devised and executed that the only laughs to be mined are unintentional. The filmmakers put more thought into the poster art than they did telling a coherent story.
What can be said of a film in which Ashton Kutcher hands in the best performance? He stars as a Los Angeles florist whose bustling shop forms the film’s center of activity and coincidence. The intertwining storylines play out over a 24-hour period and screenwriter Katherine Fugate is responsible for more structural damage than a colony of carpenter ants.
Almost nothing, starting with the fact that Jessica Biel can’t find a date, makes any sense. Fugate’s haphazard plotting makes “Crash” look like Jean Renoir. “Valentine’s Day” is a love letter aimed at TV-addicted channel surfers grateful to pick up swatches of dialogue and exposition as they giddily flip from station to station. It’s like watching “The Love Boat” minus the commercials, connecting sequences and logic.
After discovering that his betrothed (Jessica Alba) does a quick turnabout on her early morning agreement to be his bride, Kutcher is hit with another whammy. Jennifer Garner, his best friend and unrequited object of desire, informs him that she’s heading to San Francisco to surprise her doctor boyfriend (Patrick Dempsey). The problem is, Dempsey just happened to visit the store to order flowers for both his best girl and his wife.
Armed with that chunk of back-story, Garner still insists on making the trip. Dempsey’s receptionist confirms the awful truth; he’s in LA having a romantic dinner with his wife. Two scenes later finds Garner back in the Valley posing as a waitress to sarcastically break the news to Mrs. Dempsey. How she manages to get from one place to another in a matter of minutes is never explained.
It’s one thing to cast Taylors Swift and Lautner in order to attract a younger demographic. (Watching the bubbly Swift’s “performance” as a Valley girl made me instantly reconsider my negative feelings toward Kanye West.) Poor Shirley MacLaine. Not only is a framed photo of the pixyish Fran Kubelik (MacLaine’s character in Billy Wilder’s immortal “The Apartment”) strategically placed within camera range, the Oscar winning actress is asked to prance around a cemetery during a screening of “Hot Spell,” one of her best forgotten vehicles. With all the dough spent on cast salaries, there probably wasn’t enough cash left over to afford the rights to “The Apartment” or “Some Came Running.”
You’ll need a shot of insulin to make it through all the dog cutaways, cute cars and assorted bridging shots of Angelinos in love, but nothing is more sickening than the presence of child actor Bryce Robinson. I defy you not to laugh at the pathos laden shot of the tyke’s undelivered card and flowers lying in the middle of the street covered with tire tracks. Later in the film a piñata comes into play and I kept hoping that the kid somehow managed to crawl inside of it.
There is one legitimate laugh and a funny throwaway in-joke. Comedian Larry Miller plays a surly Southwest Airlines ticket agent who cautions, “I’m 52 and wearing a bright blue shirt to work. Don’t make me angrier.” Look carefully when Bradley Cooper scours the airport terminal for his limo driver. In the background you’ll spot two guys holding signs that read “Unger” and “Madison,” the two main characters in “The Odd Couple,” the TV show Marshall produced. The director can be spotted in a brief cameo as a wandering musician. Hey, if it was good enough for Hitchcock.
Be warned: If this film makes money, and it will, Fugate has already penned the follow-up: “New Year’s Day.” If that makes money, and it will, can “Veterans Day” or “Purim” be far behind?
