The Ugly Truth - Blu-ray Review

'if this is to be believed, humour appears to be saying 'blow job' in public, whilst romance boils down to kissing the man that said it'

Bearing the distinctly obvious and uninspiring tagline of 'The Truth Isn't Pretty', the level of intelligence on display in Robert Luketic's The Ugly Truth sadly doesn't improve from its marketing effort. In a first half which sees Gerard Butler's Mike Chadway hurling various coarse insults at basically every character in the cast, the tone is well and truly set for a mindless romp through the genre at a heady pace.

Only, this isn't a romp through the genre: this is a complete side step of it. Although rom-coms are rightly criticised for their current lack of inventiveness, one would forgive them for at least maintaining a certain amount of, well, Romance and Comedy. The Ugly Truth doesn't, instead faithfully recreating the conflict/resolution/conflict/resolution structure that has served the genre so well, without a moments thought as to the other essential ingredients needed to create something with much more substance than the paper thin effort screenwriters Nicole Eastman, Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith have created here. Humour to them appears to be saying 'blow job' in public whilst romance boils down to kissing the man that said it.

Butler - impressive in 300, passable in Law Abiding Citizen - isn't helping his reputation as an actor by apparently pursuing roles more deprived than his last, although here he may struggle to outdo himself. Chadway is a chauvinist who hurls sexualised abuse at anyone he comes across, catapulting him to national fame and celebrity. The moral: it's OK for him to do this because once, he was hurt by a woman. The one laugh I emerged with was when he described himself as 'the talent', a sadly ironic breach of the fourth wall if Butler keeps this up.

Although I had all but turned off at the point when Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl) starts rooting for the misogynists by actually listening to Chadway, I was at least still watching when Luketic butchered an extended joke in a restaurant. A joke which, bearing more than a passing resemblance to a classic scene in a classic comedy, will no doubt have many people of a certain film heritage reaching for the off button. The inconvenience of doing so can, of course, be completely averted by going nowhere near this one in the first place. Crass and thoroughly un-engaging on every level.

Look further...

'overall a very predictable Rom-Com, just full of some pretty raunchy jokes not usually found in the genre' - Random Ramblings Of A Demented Doorknob, 6/9