SYNOPSIS:
Ambitious young New Yorker Beth (Alexis Bledel) wants it all: a good job, great friend and the perfect guy. Beth falls hard for a Wall Street hotshot Tommy (Scott Porter), but when she meets Tommy's shy co-worker Daniel (Bryan Greenberg), she learns that the game of love is a lot like Wall Street - high risk, high reward... and everybody has an angle.
MOVIE REVIEW:
The title of this 2009 movie gets a thumbs down from us. What exactly are the words “The Good Guy” supposed to mean? And won’t people confuse it with 2002’s The Good Girl starring Jennifer Anniston, 2006’s The Good German starring George Clooney, or American TV series The Good Guys? Seriously, the people behind this supposed comedy drama can do better than titling their work “The Good Guy”?
It doesn’t help that we are finding it difficult to relate the synopsis to the title: A young girl wants her life to be perfect with a good job, a company of good friends, and err, a good guy. So the story has her having to make the choice between a good looking Wall Street hot shot and a less showy colleague who is your new age sensitive man. Wait – both guys are good looking, so she doesn’t have much to lose, does she?
The official plot write up says that the girl learns that this game of love is like dealing stocks on Wall Street. Personally, we are thinking that the co relation is stretching it a little too far. We know how the writers are trying to make the characters in this movie seem smooth, slick and professional (it’s set in the Big Apple after all), but trying too hard is exactly why this 91 minute production fails to engage.
It doesn’t help that the motivation and cause for the female protagonist appears to be inconsequential and almost frivolous. Told in a tried and tested flashback style, this movie feels as dated as its uncreative DVD cover. There is nothing original or particularly exciting in this tale of one girl and two guys. True, the yawn fest does benefit from a good looking cast (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’ Alexis Bledel, Bandslam’s Scott Porter, Bride Wars’ Bryan Greenberg), but the young actors do not have what it takes to anchor the movie emotionally. They look like mere cardboard cutouts delivering their drearily written lines.
Director Julio Depietro has also failed to capture the energetic dynamism of New York, as we remember seeing in other movies. The scenes play out like a safely filmed sequence of a TV movie, and do not engage audiences enough to care for the characters. So when the movie ends with one of the guys (we are not telling you which one, but we are guessing that you would already know) being dumped at the doorstep of the “I want it all” female lead, we are somewhat glad that this marks the end of the forgettable movie.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
This Code 3 DVD contains an uninteresting Audio Commentary with Writer/ Director Julio DePietro and cast member Alexis Bledel where you hear about the, we hate to use this word, inconsequential, process of making the movie. There is also a Theatrical Trailer included on the disc.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
There is nothing to complain about the movie’s visual transfer. You can watch it in either 5.1 or 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo English tracks.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING:
Review by John Li
Posted on 24 April 2011
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