Did You Hear About the Morgans? (Sunday, December 20, 2009) (200)

Writer/director Marc Lawrence clearly loves Hugh Grant - and vice versa. The stuttering Brit star has been in all three of of Lawrence's feature films, Two Weeks Notice, Music and Lyrics and now, Did You Hear About the Morgans? They are all have three different female co-stars and all have Grant in about the same role in each: a nice and cute guy who the women try to hate, but can't. (I guess that's basically the same rose as Grant's who career.)

In The Morgans, Grant and ex-wife Sarah Jessica Parker live exceptionally well but separately in Manhattan. One night, when he is trying to woo her back to him, they witness a murder. They are immediately put into the witness relocation program and end up in Wyoming, where they stay with federal marshal Sam Elliott and his wife Mary Steenburgen. Being from the West, the cowboy duo like guns, rodeo and everything foreign and uncomfortable to the pansy New Yorkers. Grant and Parker learn to love and trust each other again as they deal with a simpler life in a small town.

There's not a heck of a lot of depth to the story - not that one would really expect that. Parker basically plays Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City - but in the Upper Mountain West rather than the Upper East Side. She makes foolish and hateful comments about common people being dumb and doesn't understand that you can buy a sweater that's not cashmere (um, Carrie/Sarah, you can actually shop at K-Mart in New York City too). Why she has decided to take her highest profile roles as a total heartless, affected bitch is beyond me. I have to admit I really hate the roles she plays. She's whiny and out-of-touch with reality (even reality below 42nd street).

Somehow this couple are the first significantly rich Manhattanites to have never been out of the city to know how pretty the natural world is. In one dumb scene, they look at the night sky in Wyoming and marvel at all the stars they see. Are you telling me they don't own a house in the Hamptons or the Hudson Valley? They've never been to Vail to go skiing or Bora Bora for snorkeling? This is dumb.

As with the other Lawrence films, Grant is given some of the best lines of the film - and he does really well with them (particularly the last line of the film). He really does have some magnetic charm to him and is a very good comedian. His performance (and some of his dialogue) as well as the Elliott and Steenburgen characters are the best things in the film. I guess I got out of this what I expected: a rather anonymous and recycled comedy. I would have rather had less aloof, rich New Yorker from Parker, but I'm happy with what I got from Grant.

Stars: 1.5 of 4