It's tempting to make a joke based on the title of The Ugly Truth. But that would require investing this review with more actual wit than the entire film contains.
Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler are stranded in Sacramento in this film -- literally and figuratively. The script itself might as well be the product of random thoughts collected at an open-mike night at a Sacramento comedy club; it has that level of coherence and humor.
This is crass color-by-numbers comedy, following a formula without any visible inspiration. Here's the message: It's okay to make a movie that's insulting to women if the heroine is an uptight bitch who eventually loosens up (cue the underwear with implanted vibrator -- har har) -- and if the hero is an unredeemed dick who eventually gets, well, redeemed.
In this case, you've got uptight control freak Abby (Heigl), who can't get a date. She's forced to work with Mike (Butler), a throwback male to whom all women are the sum of their orifices. Can you see where this is leading? Perhaps you should have written it.
Abby produces a low-rated TV morning show (in Sacramento? It doesn't get much more pathetic, unless maybe it's Albany). Mike hosts a foul-mouthed cable-access show offering Neanderthal dating advice to men. When her boss hires him to spice up her show, she's outraged -- right up until Mike not only gets ratings but offers her tips about how to hook the hunky doctor who just moved in next door to her.
By the 45-minute mark, you know Mike is crushing on Abby. By the one-hour mark, she's looking at him differently. At 70 minutes -- really, it's just this schematic -- they kiss. At 80 minutes, they have a misunderstanding and break up. At 90 minutes, it's happily-ever-after time. Roll credits.
There's no spoiler alert required here; this movie was spoiled before they started.
It's sad how hard Heigl and Butler work -- and to such little effect. The film is rated R because Butler and Heigl both say "fuck" and "blowjob" and "cock" a lot. But there aren't any R-rated laughs a la Judd Apatow or the Farrelly brothers. Instead, the humor is all on the level of little kids who think it's funny to talk dirty.
Guess what? It's not.
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