Movie Review: Catch and Release by ME

Title: Catch And Release
Starring: Jennifer Garner, Timothy Olyphant, Juliette Lewis, Sam Jaeger, Kevin Smith, Fiona Shaw
Directed By: Susannah Grant
Produced By: Casey Grant, Ryan Kavanaugh, Lynwood Spinks
Genre: Comedy, Drama and Romance
Release Date: January 26th, 2007
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, language and some drug use.
Distributors: Sony Pictures Releasing

A woman must deal with the untimely death of her fiance and the revelation of secrets he kept from her. -Yahoo! Movies

Yep, its just about as boring as the synopsis. Maybe boring isn't quite the right word. I would use lackluster. Yep, that's a better word. Basically this is a movie that doesn't try quite hard enough to be really appealing. There are places where more character development would have been nice. There are some slight twists involving an underdeveloped love triangle, and the relationship that does develop makes no sense. Fritz (Timothy Olyphant), one of Gray's (Jennifer Garner) dead fiance's friends starts off as a prick and then all of a sudden he's a nice guy. Nothing really happens to cause this change of character, it just happens.

The only thing that made this movie interesting was Kevin Smith as Sam, another of Grady's (the dead fiance) friends. If you are a fan of Smith and have watched any of the special features of any of his movies, you will notice that Mr Smith isn't acting in this. He's just being himself and it's great to hear him say more than one sentence per movie. Jennifer Garner is cute and you do get the feel of what she's going through as each revelation is made, but there is a lack of cohesiveness to the film. Timothy Olyphant is the victim of poor writing and/or directing here. He comes off pretty unlikable for the first part of the film and then does the aforementioned about face. Although to give him credit, he does pull off both sides well, there just isn't anything in between to show how he got to be a nice guy. Oh and there is of course, the mandatory character, Dennis (Sam Jaeger), who is in love with Gray, but she loves somebody else. Lastly, but not leastly, you have Juliette Lewis who is just as spacey and freaky as she is in just about everything else. Her and Mr. Smith do make the movie watchable but just barely.

Final thoughts – If you are a Kevin Smith fan I'd give this one a whirl when it is released on DVD. Otherwise, I'd probably skip it.

Until Elektra 2: Elektra Boogaloo,
keep reading.

Mitch Emerson
mitchemerson@hotmail.com

Best Line:

Fritz: I owe you an apology.
Gray: Just one?
Fritz: For the funeral.
Gray: Yeah, if it hadn't been for you, that would've been one great day.