GARY SINYOR
Bil’s rating (out of 5): BB.5.
USA, 1999. New Line Cinema, The Lloyd Segan Company, George Street Pictures. Screenplay by Steve Cohen, based on the play Seven Chances by Roi Cooper Megrue and the 1925 screenplay Seven Chances by Jean C. Havez, Clyde Bruckman, Joseph A. Mitchell. Cinematography by Simon Archer. Produced by Jeffrey T. Barabe, Bing Howenstein, Lloyd Segan. Music by David A. Hughes, John Murphy. Production Design by Craig Stearns. Costume Design by Terry Dresbach. Film Editing by Robert M. Reitano, Florence Vinger.
Routine romantic comedy that moves at a sluggish pace and is further hampered by the obvious embarrassment of its stars. Chris O’Donnell (in a mundane performance that lacks any personality or spark) plays a successful businessman who enjoys short-term relationships with girlfriends until he meets an endlessly charming woman (Renee Zellweger) with whom he falls in love. They date for a few years, and she starts looking for progress in their relationship, so he caves in to the pressure and asks her to marry him. She, however, can see right through his immature proposal and turns him down, leaving them both in an emotional lurch without each other. When his grandfather suddenly dies, O’Donnell learns that he has a one hundred million dollar inheritance coming his way, providing only one condition: that he be married by his thirtieth birthday. Seeing as how that’s two days after the announcement of his grandfather’s will, he finds himself with something of a challenge before him. Little bits by Mariah Carey and Jennifer Esposito as former girlfriends and possible wives are entertaining, not to mention a seriously funny cameo by Brooke Shields as the terrifying end in economically sanctioned matrimony, but the money shot happens when O’Donnell is chased through the streets of San Francisco by thousands of potential brides decked out in their white wedding dresses. The finale is cheesy, and Zellweger looks stilted and bored, but perhaps a fanatic of this kind of movie will enjoy it. Remake of the Buster Keaton movie Seven Chances.
