'This Means War' is like 'Three's Company,' but more cynical
This Means War.
11:36 am Feb. 16, 2012
It's not often helpful to evaluate movies by guessing at the social damage they might inflict on impressional young viewers, so forgive me for asking the following: What kind of message does This Means War send?
The new romantic comedy might have been diagnosing itself when Reese Witherspoon’s character tells off co-star Chris Pine by telling him that he’s as wise as a 15-year-old brat.
Director McG (Terminator: Salvation, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle) and screenwriters Timothy Dowling and Simon Kinberg probably know this; they have created a romantic comedy that panders so hard to its prospective audience as to be useless to anyone old enough to have dated anyone, or really to have any critical faculties at all.
The plot of This Means War starts out according to a very ordinary zany-comedy formula, and gets worse from there.
Pine plays FDR Foster (no relation to the president), a C.I.A. agent who shares a very strong platonic bond with his colleague Tuck (Tom Hardy). Tuck and FDR do everything together, including courting the same girl.
Lauren (Witherspoon), the object of the boys’ affection, is the head of a company that tests the use-value of various consumer products. Both Lauren and Tuck are nervous about online dating. But after being encouraged by Trish (Chelsea Handler), Lauren’s sexually frustrated married sister, and FDR, a confident playboy, they each agree to try meeting prospective mates on the internet.
Lauren and Tuck hit it off on their date. But right after they exchange numbers, Lauren bumps into FDR at a nearby video store. Not knowing who Lauren is, FDR flirts with her. In fact, he crushes on her so hard that he decides he must pursue her. She inevitably yields to his advances.
So here's the plot so far: She agrees to go out with both men after going out on a date with Tuck and then meeting FDR.
FDR turns out to be bad news, as he stalks Lauren using C.I.A. technology and then embarrasses her in front of a focus group of housewives. To add insult to apparent injury, FDR compares her to a user-unfriendly rotisserie cooker.
At this point, the viewer is required to believe in a universe in which an attractive, socially competent woman like Lauren would agree to date a man she just met who has stalked and humiliated her.
To be fair, most of the plot-reversals in This Means War revolve around the assumption that everyone is trying to defy everyone else's expectations. So, presumably, good-looking, well-groomed and articulate characters behave badly because they want to look like something they're not.
FDR tries to impress Lauren by proving that he’s not as self-absorbed as he actually is by adopting the most pathetic-looking dog he can find. And Tuck tries to make Lauren see him as dangerous by inviting her to a paintball game in which he simulates slaughtering a bunch of kids and arrested adolescents.
The film chalks this dishonesty up to boys-will-be-boys one-upsmanship, so neither of them can help it. Like FDR, Tuck also breaks into Lauren’s home to try to get a better idea of the kind of person he has to be to impress her. Unlike Tuck, FDR pretends to be well-versed in areas he’s totally unfamiliar with, like the paintings of Gustav Klimt, an artist Lauren is especially fond of.
There's no lesson here or anything. Lauren does pick one of the two guys, even after discovering that both men knew they were dating her at the same time. Furthermore, the idea of two grown men dating the same woman and treating it as a competition is such sitcom-level schtick that I’m surprised the ghost of John Ritter didn’t make a cameo appearance just to tsk-tsk the film’s stars for signing off on such a vapid premise.
The decision Lauren ultimately makes is stupid. So stupid, in fact, that it makes you realize that the entire movie is just a collection of stupid decisions that have been made in an attempt at getting cheap laughs. The biggest guffaw of the film comes after Tuck shoots FDR with a tranquilizer gun just before Tuck can have sex with Lauren (she ultimately rationalizes her decision to diddle both men by excusing her promiscuity as a “sex tie-breaker”). FDR swoons, but not before Tuck, perched across the street with a sniper rifle in hand, winks and gives him a high sign to indicate that all’s fair in love and war, or something.
This is the point at which the filmmakers announce in bold capital letters that their story isn’t playing fair with viewers (on any level) and they know it. This Means War’s protagonists are pointedly shallow and make stupid decisions because they can, and there’s not much to the film more than that.
Kids, don’t try this at home.
