Save Your Money and Skip This One

Fans of Janet Evanovich’s beloved mystery book series featuring ‘Stephanie Plum’ as the main character will be disappointed in the film adaption, as the lead in the film is terribly miscast. The role calls for an Italian, blue-collar ‘Jersey Girl’ of sorts, and Katherine Heigl doesn’t fit the bill. Her familiar blonde curly locks are dyed dark brown in an attempt to look the part, however, her East coast-Italian accent was off-key. At least in “27 Dresses” she was believable. To be fair, the script doesn’t help her situation, as her lines are mundane and shallow.

Director Julie Anne Robinson (“The Last Song”) is at the helm with a script penned by Stacy Sherman, Karen Ray and Liz Brixius. The majority of the film centers on Plum’s novice attempt to bring in bail jumper, Joe Morelli (Jason O’Mara), a vice cop who’s accused of shooting an unarmed man. Plum, an ex-lingerie sales gal at Macy’s in Newark, New Jersey, is clueless on how to accomplish this task. I’m assuming that’s the attraction of the series, Plum’s submersion into the foreign world of guns, stakeouts, informants and trap setting.

The plot sounds charming. Her mother, father, grandmother, cousin and bond office workers can’t believe she’s serious about her ‘new’ job. In the film, they mostly humor her but don’t help her too much, usually they stand by while rolling their eyes in disbelief. One person does come forward − her wacky grandmother, played by the scene-stealing Debbie Reynolds. When we meet Plum, she’s down on her luck and is having trouble paying rent and car payments. When her car is repossessed, Grandma offers the keys to her own car, a humongous town car of sorts that’s great for transportation but not so hot for her job. There’s no way the car could ever be well hidden on a stakeout job.

Plum does make it to a shooting range and learns to shoot a gun with the help of Ranger (Daniel Sunjata), her personal mentor and bodyguard. Sunjata’s performance was admirable – each time he appeared in a scene the film seemed to raise itself a notch or two. Unfortunately, Sunjata’s screen time was limited and we were subjected to mainly cutesy duo scenes with Heigl and O’Mara, which at times were noticeably unbearable due to the lackluster chemistry between them.

A film is doomed when the lead is off and the co-star doesn’t give a stellar performance. I couldn’t quite put my finger on to why, watching these two banter back and forth was so awful. I’d have to say that it was the combination of the bland script, unconvincing characters and amateur directing. Lame lines such as, “Hey Girl Scout, what happened? Did you lose your troop?” add to the misery. Perhaps Heigl (a producer of the film) was banking on her name and book series fans to come to the recue. This was a blatant error which could put an end to Heigl’s draw to the theater.

Bottom-line: Skip this one all together. No redeeming aspects other than Debbie Reynolds performance and that was cut way too short.

Cast: Katherine Heigl (Stephanie Plum), Jason O’Mara (Joseph Morelli), Daniel Sunjata (Ranger), John Leguizamo (Jimmy Alpha), Sherri Shepherd (Lula) and Debbie Reynolds (Grandma Mazur

Credits: Directed by Julie Anne Robinson; written by Stacy Sherman, Karen Ray and Liz Brixius; based on the novel by Janet Evanovich.

Studio: Lionsgate

Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes

Sarah Adamson© February 2, 2012