Buying the Cow

Buying the Cow; comedy, USA, 2002; D: Walt Becker, S: Jerry O'Connell, Ryan Reynolds, Bridgette Wilson, Bill Bellamy, Jon Tenney, Scarlett Chorvat, Alyssa Milano

Los Angeles. David is in a relationship with Sarah for years now, but is still reluctant of proposing her since he has a hunch that his soulmate is still somewhere out there. In a diner, he spots a woman who awakens this feeling in him, but she drives away in her car. Sarah travels to New York for a job contract, whereas David's friends Jonesy and Mike try to persuade him to start dating again. Sarah finds a new love in NY whereas David meets the mysterious woman again, Katie, and falls for her.

A mishmash of "Singles", "How Sally Met Harry" and "There's Something About Mary" - just dumber, clumsier, stupider and more vulgar - "Buying the Cow" is an highly uneven comedy about relationships that was saved only and exclusively thanks to a few clever lines in the midst of all the garbage. The storyline suffers from too many cheap attempts at humor, distorted behavior presented as OK (David somehow seems to find it all right to place a personal add while he is still with Sarah), homophobia (disasterous joke involving Reynolds' character Mike accidentally thinking he slept with a man, so the first thing he does is to throw up - and to make it even worse, he then goes outside naked and stumbles upon a little kid like that) and numerous other heavy handed solutions. Even Alyssa Milano was not given a sufficently charming role since her 5 minute role as the stripper was wasted. Still, there are two great lines that say volumes about love and its perception: when David says that somewhere out there destiny might hold his dream woman, Mike says: "If it is inevitable, why rush it?" while Jonesy compares such way of thinking with the "search for Sasquatch".

Grade:+