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Serving Sara
2002 - PG-13 - 100 Mins.
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| Director: Reginald Hudlin | | Producer: Dan Halsted | | Written By: Jay Scherick, David Ronn | | Starring: Matthew Perry, Elizabeth Hurley, Cedric the Entertainer, Bruce Campbell |
| Review by: Joe Rickey |
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When Sara (Elizabeth Hurley) is served divorce papers while she is in New York, she is obviously shocked. Not about to lose the fortune she gained with her self-centered Texan born husband, Sara makes a proposition to her process server, Joe (Matthew Perry) that sets them off on a wild trip across the country. This comedy stars Matthew Perry, Elizabeth Hurley, Bruce Campbell, Cedric the Entertainer, Vincent Pastore and Amy Adams. Serving Sara is directed by Reginald Hudlin (2000’s The Ladies Man).
As far as romantic comedies go, Serving Sara is one of the more mean-spirited examples of the genre that I have come across in the last few years. This film features an eccentric cast of people that are all mean to others around them and will do whatever is necessary to make the situation better for themselves no matter what happens to people around them. To put it simply, this film is filled with a cast of self-centered people outside of Campbell’s character unlike what the marketing tries to tell you. Other than this significant problem the film is quite funny at times.
The various slapstick gags in this film call to remembrance the greatly under appreciated Big Trouble from earlier this year. Like that film, Serving Sara throws many jokes at you the viewer and hopes that they stick. Thankfully, like Trouble, the majority of the jokes work in this film. Of course, the production can’t avoid the occasional crude joke that would fit into films such as Say It Isn’t So or another crude lowbrow comedy. When Serving Sara delivers jokes with more depth the film is absolutely hilarious in the hands of the capable cast of comedic veterans.
Speaking of the cast, they perform well in their respective roles but are hampered by heartless characters. Matthew Perry is basically playing a more selfish version of the character he played in The Whole Nine Yards and excels at it because he possesses great comedic timing. Elizabeth Hurley also is recycling here as she acts much like her devilish persona from Bedazzled except she’s human here and not the devil. In his largest role in years Bruce Campbell is able to get many laughs from his selfish money-grubbing character. Cedric the Entertainer displays ample comedic wit in his limited role. I wish that he would have been more present in the film because he was really funny.
Overall, Serving Sara is a fairly entertaining comedy that suffers from a cast of unappealing characters.
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