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SYNOPSIS:
Hugh
Grant and Sara Jessica Parker star in this delightful comedy
about finding love in the most unexpected places. Two successful
New Yorkers, Paul (Grant) and Meryl (Parker), are at their
wits' end with repairing their strained marriage. But when
they become the only witnesses to a brutal murder, the police
hide them away in Wyoming - together. Now these die-hard city
dwellers will have to survive the weather, bears, fresh air,
and forced time with one another if they want to make it out
alive.
MOVIE
REVIEW:
Hugh Grant – British actor. Disheveled
Hair. Puppy Eyes. Best known as the leading man in number
of rom-coms such as Four Weddings And A Funeral, Notting Hill,
Bridget Jones’s Diary and countless more.
Sarah
Jessica Parker – American actress. Dated the late John
Kennedy Jr and Robert Downey Jr but married to fellow actor
Matthew Broderick. Immortalised as sex-columnist Carrie Bradshaw
in the HBO series "Sex and the City".
Marc Lawrence – American Writer and
Director. Best known as the writer for Miss Congeniality and
director of Forces of Nature and Two Weeks Notice. Has worked
thrice with Hugh Grant including Did You Hear About The Morgans?
These three personnel might be the core reason
why everyone ignored the Morgans when it was released theatrically
and getting panned by critics alike doesn’t help in
pushing some tickets sales as well.
Grant and Parker play Paul and Meryl Morgan,
a pair of highly successful couple on the verge of divorce
after Paul had an extramarital affair during one of his business
trip. The unhappy couple happened to witness a murder which
involves some wanted arms dealer and they are reluctantly
forced to relocate by the police under the witness protection
program to a secluded place, Ray, Wyoming. And without further
prompting by this humble reviewer, I guess more than half
the population of Singapore would have guessed the ending.
The
script by Marc Lawrence is strictly a paint-by-numbers, predictable
affair. It seems that Mr Lawrence has pretty much run out
of original rom-com ideas to entertain the audience consider
his last effort with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore, "Music
& Lyrics" was insanely charming. In "Morgans",
it is just a simple fish-out-of-story involving a pair of
troubled couple trying to work out their marriage.
The jokes got a bit lame when the city dwellers
found themselves under the supervision of Clay and Emma Wheeler
(Sam Elliot and Mary Steenburgen), the local marshal and his
wife who are assigned to put up federal witnesses. Log-chopping,
horse riding, guns shooting, cows milking and being terrified
by a bear (the bear moment is good though and it’s not
done in CG as shown in the extra feature), antics which you
might have seen a million times in many other movies.
To make matters worse, the pairing of Grant
and Parker fails to dazzle as an onscreen couple. The man
is from London and the woman from America (sorry can’t
help for the cheapshot) and there’s zilch chemistry
which are convincing to the audience that they are once a
happily married couple. In fact, Grant seems far more comfortable
with Rene Zellweger and Julia Roberts. Ironically, it’s
Sam Elliot and Mary Steenburgen that steals the show even
with their minimal dialog and interaction that makes them
a plausible country couple whom never leave the rustic Wyoming.
The
movie itself does contains a few spontaneous moments but not
substantial enough to salvage the whole movie. Lawrence should
have just let go more of the cliché moments and not
turning into another cookie-cutter production that works better
as a straight to video release.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
Deleted Scenes and Outtakes – There are 2 deleted
scenes and 6 minutes of outtakes if you love to watch the
actors fumbling over their lines.
Commentary
with director Marc Lawrence and stars Hugh Grant & Sarah
Jessica Parker – It’s rare to hear a
director sitting down with his stars for a commentary track
nowadays. But here they are, the three main culprits contributing
a mediocre discussion track about the insights of making the
movie.
Cowboys
and Cosmopolitans: The Stars of Did You Hear About The Morgans
– A self-congratulatory feature that has the main cast
members patting on each other’s shoulders.
Park
Avenue Meets The Prairie: The Fashions of Did You Hear About
The Morgans – A 5 minutes segment that focus
on the costumes design
Location,
Location, Location! – This is one of the longest
featurette for the extras. Running at 18 minutes, it focused
on the difficulties of filming in New York and New Mexico
which served as a substitution for Wyoming.
A
Bear of a Scene – And you thought the bear
was CG. This interesting segment shows you how Hugh Grant
manages to survive acting alongside a real bear.
International
Special – Another making-of special that lasts
13 minutes but pathetically most of the material here are
covered previously.
A
number of trailers from Sony including Julie
& Julia, The Ugly Truth and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
round off the extra features.
AUDIO/VISUAL:The
New York settings and the vast landscape that follows offer
a generally good video transfer. A close-up shot of bacon
and eggs akes you craving for the real thing. The Dolby Digital
5.1 offers a pitch-perfect listening experience. With the
exception of ambience sound effects such as traffic and music,
the soundtrack has little to get excited about owning to the
nature of the movie.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Linus Tee
Posted on 20 April 2010
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