FILM REVIEW: "The Bounty Hunter" a dull, lifeless lump

Contemporary bounty hunters do not have a deep history on film, but one cinematic rule seems to be that they must drive big, classic convertibles.

As the title character in “The Bounty Hunter,” Gerard Butler drives a large blue Delta 88 with a white ragtop. I mention this because the car is the best character.

Butler plays Milo Boyd, who became a bounty hunter after he was kicked off the New York City police force. Jennifer Aniston plays his ex-wife, Nicole Hurley, a reporter for the New York Daily News.
Milo helpfully, and needlessly, explains the premise when he says, "You mean I'll get paid $5,000 for finding my ex-wife and bringing her to jail?" You've probably seen this moment. His speech is in all the commercials.

Worse than that, “The Bounty Hunter” is so badly written that dialogue also provides character description. Aniston’s mother, played by Christine Baranski, tells Milo: “Nikki may be a strong, independent woman on the outside, but on the inside she’s just a girl who wants to be loved by her man.” So much for letting the audience figure this out on its own.

“The Bounty Hunter” is supposed to be a romantic comedy-action movie hybrid – Hepburn and Tracy in “Midnight Run” – but it fails all genre requirements. Aniston and Butler’s bickering is tedious from the start and fuels neither romance nor comedy. And someone should tell director Andy Tennant that an action movie should have to contain more than a 60-second comic rooftop chase in the beginning, a 40-second car chase in the middle and a 10-second shootout at the end. The car chase is nicely edited, though, and doesn’t use CGI. So for 40 seconds, “The Bounty Hunter” isn’t so bad.

Milo is after Nicole because she missed a court appearance on a charge of assaulting a police officer (the explanation for that is almost amusing). Outside parties complicate his pursuit. Nicole is investigating a mysterious suicide and police corruption, so a killer (stock bad guy Peter Greene) is after her. Milo owes $11,000 to Atlantic City bookie Cathie Moriarty, so she sends a couple of dimwitted enforcers (Joel Marsh Garland and Ritchie Coster) after him.

It’s all meant to be wacky stuff with everyone’s paths criss-crossing, but Sarah Thorp’s script is so ineptly structured that the only things that keep the plot moving are coincidence and stupidity. “The Bounty Hunter” wants to be a road movie, but there isn’t enough road between New York and Atlantic City to sustain comedy or tension. Characters remain in Atlantic City for no good reason. The best plot complication Thorp can invent is that Milo’s gambling addiction is so strong he cannot resist a challenge at the craps table, so he delays the chance to collect on Nicole’s bounty. For her part, Nicole is too dumb to escape, despite ample opportunity.

The problem with having your main characters behave like morons, besides making them less appealing to the audience, is that the supporting characters must behave like imbeciles for the story to advance. As a fellow reporter with a crush on Nicole, comedian Jason Sudeikis acts less like a real human being than a nitwit from an NBC Thursday night sit-com (not coincidentally, he has a recurring role on “30 Rock”).

Tennant directed one of the best romantic comedies of the past decade, “Hitch,” which sparkled with Will Smith and Eva Mendes’ chemistry and witty interplay. Tennant hopes for a similar spark between Butler and Aniston and gets a fizzle.

Nothing connects in “Bounty Hunter” because nothing is real. Butler is convincing enough as a bounty hunter – all he needs is the stubble and the convertible – but Aniston is dull and unconvincing as a hard-bitten reporter (the same job Mendes played in “Hitch”). The script is more to blame than the actress, but Aniston’s personality is too relaxed for screwball comedy.

The location photography in Queens and Atlantic City is a highlight that adds some color, but “The Bounty Hunter” is a dull, inert lump. The premise fails to become a story, the characters fail to become people, and the script stalls far more often than it runs.

'The Bounty Hunter'

Two stars

Rated PG-13 for sexual content involving suggestive comments, language and some violence

Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes