Jamie
Serving Sara came out on a balmy August day 21 years ago. Late August doldrums where films went to die, or at least that’s how it used to be. Nowadays hits come whenever the audience demands it. But back then? No, the major releases that week were Undisputed, S1m0ne, and this (and none of them cracked the top 5). Barbenheimer this was not. But you wouldn’t know that from the advertisements. Check out these quotes from the NYTimes:
Not only are these egregiously long, but they are real embarrassing. I hope whoever these critics are got paid a pretty penny for delivering this level of comedy. And even funnier than that? If you look closely at the first and the third they are by the same guy, Earl Dittman from Wireless Magazines. I wonder who that is? Oh ho, he has a wikipedia page… that appears entirely devoted to the fact that he churns out these quotes for national exposure.
Wow.
To recap, Matthew Perry is a former lawyer-turned-kinda-bad-process-server. When the rival at his company screws up a job he’s given one last chance to deliver for an important client. The job: deliver divorce papers to Elizabeth Hurley as filed in the state of Texas. After he easily does this, he inadvertently spills that it’s too bad the papers weren’t filed in New York where she would make more money… this gives Hurley a brilliant idea. They strike a deal for $1 million where Perry will switch sides and serve her husband instead. Perry’s boss is pissed and gets the other process server on the case, but Perry is too smart for that and sends him on a wild goose chase. Meanwhile they head to Texas where the real chase begins. They follow her husband from Dallas to their ranch in Laredo. Eventually they find the husband’s new mistress who proposes a deal that Perry quickly accepts. But what an idiot! It was a trick set up by his rival. Oh no! They have lost… or have they? (what a twist!) Turns out the rival made a similar boneheaded error that he made in the beginning of the movie and Perry still has one hour to track down Hurley’s husband. They chase him into a monster truck rally (naturally) where he is eventually served and all the bad guys are gravely injured. Perry uses his money to open a vineyard and he and Hurley smooch… hard. THE END.
This is a generally unpleasant movie. View from the Top? Pleasant people, happy they were happy. Serving Sara? Just a bunch of people scrounging around for money. Perry’s character in particular is confounding. The backstory makes no sense… he didn’t like defending criminals anymore so he quit being a good lawyer to be a terrible process server? Why not just, you know… become a good lawyer doing good things? Anway, I did think Hurley was surprisingly charming. It made me wonder why she wasn’t a bigger star. Maybe she was too “hot,” or maybe she chose family instead, but she was quite good even though she and Perry had negative chemistry.
Hot Take Clam Bake! My take is Perry’s character is actually in witness protection. He talks about how he used to be a lawyer but got tired of defending the bad people like mobsters. So he quit… quit? You don’t just quit defending the mob, capiche? It explains all the other weird stuff going on. He was good enough to defend high profile bad guys and yet when he gives that up he’s just a second rate, anonymous process server in the biggest city in the world? Def in witness protection after giving up the good on the Chicago mob. That’s the sequel, in fact… when they finally hit it big by winning a prestigious wine award, the mobsters come a-knockin’. Hot Take Temperature: City Heat.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about Matthew Perry playing Chandler Bing in a major motion picture … again … because that’s the character he plays in most things he’s in? Also Elizabeth Hurley, my god. Let’s go!
As a young man Elizabeth Hurley was right there in the perfect position for me to have a crush on. Basically it is entirely because of Austin Powers (let’s see, Young Patrick is 11 when that comes out, check) and a little because of Bedazzled (2000, but while I don’t have the data to back it up, suffice it to say this was on ALL THE TIME on television). Her career is funny because as far as leading stuff is concerned … uh, those two and this are just about it. She was made famous for being Hugh Grant’s girlfriend when he became famous. And then she had a kid and semi-retired (a tale as old as time).
Matthew Perry on the other had a very well known (now) drug problem throughout the run of Friends (“fat Chandler” effectively marks when he was off opioids). During the filming of Serving Sara I think he was just out of rehab and struggling, but you can see “fat Chandler” return for a true blue cameo right at the end of the film.
There’s a funny segment by Norm MacDonald where he claims that Perry’s assistant told him that he wanted to do a sketch where Perry is teaching a class on “Matt Speak”. And Norm is like “What’s Matt Speak?” And the assistant is like “you know, how Chandler speaks, with that irreverence, poking fun at people.” And Norm is like “You mean sarcasm?” I only bring this up because this movie is, much like all of Perry’s feature films, an exercise in “Hey hey hey … do Chandler. Do Chandler, but he’s a process server.”
Speaking of which, no occupation has had the weirder Hollywood representations as process server I think. Almost certainly 99.99999% of the time the process server just walks up to people and hands them subpoenas. But in the movies they always have elaborate costumes and stuff.
Jerry Stiller is in this and makes the same prostate joke as he would make in Zoolander.
This movie is a mess. A complete and utter mess. Four thousand things are flying around all the time during it. Cedric the Entertainer is dancing. The competing process server is sent to Miami and Bangor. It is half a road trip film, but really, they are flying places and you don’t really know where they are half the time. You can’t tell why Perry is a process server (despite him allegedly having a whole anecdote as to why he is one), and you barely get any back story about Hurley at all (why is she, a British woman, married to a Texas cattle rancher? Completely unexplained). There are the occasional joke, but for every one of those there is a bad bull ass puppet waiting in the wings.
Definitely a Product Placement (What?) for Verizon which comes in a few times, most notably on the many payphones Perry uses during the film. I think there is a Setting as a Character (Where?) for Texas. A huge Secret Holiday Film (When?) because throughout the film there are decorations for Christmas everywhere, but there is very very little indication or acknowledgment by anyone that it is, in fact, Christmas. One hundred percent a BMT comedy, in that there is just enough to make you ask why anything is happening, but I didn’t actually find the movie boring, I thought it was mostly just perplexing.
Read about my sequel idea in the Quiz. Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 