What Happens in Vegas: Love, money, fate & fight in Vegas!
Sometime it helps to take up a film that is so predictable that you can predict not only the story but also the box-office business as well. The method has been practiced to perfection; hate leading to love is a bull’s eye hit at point blank range that only a moron can miss. You absolutely do not need to let your imagination on a fly to understand what might happen next! Who can not figure out that antagonism is only skin-deep in What Happens in Vegas? This Cameron Diaz - Ashton Kutcher starrer supposedly romantic comedy takes you for a journey between hate and love with the background of a surprise shower of fortune. Though these two can not fall in the list of best romantic category, they give a seasoned performance and is quite a welcome break from the most unlike pairs of Hollywood that have flooded the screen of late.
With the Fox name adding some value to it, What Happens in Vegas comes between two Sci-Fi thrills like Iron Man and Speed Racer, and that marks the Fox marketing strategies to launch it right when there isn’t really much of a competition. Anther fact that can be called an audience-befooling Fox marketing stunt is the promotional tagline, “Cameron! Ashton! Vegas!”, this isn’t true, the film has only 15 minutes of Vegas in it. However, this is the time that sets the tone of the film and you know what lies ahead, when you find the romantic couple fighting over a Vegas fortune.
Rating: 3/5
Even if you would not remember this film for long as a comedy, the film does strike the cords at certain scenes in the film that deserve a well-timed humor tag. Like the one when Joy (Cameron Diaz) throws a surprise birthday party for her fiancé (Jason Sudeikis), which turns out to be a surprise for her at the end, as he comes drunk to the party and without having any idea about the guests hiding all over the places shouts that he is dumping her even though the sex was just great, he is fed up for fastidiousness.
The comedy drips over from the name of Tipper (Lake Bell) and Hater (Rob Corddry), who act as the best friend’s of the protagonists only to add fuel to the whole hotchpotch. However the situations might be far from the reality, the plot of the film has nothing unusual. Hate between two young characters, who finds partying and having fun to be the remedy of broken hearts and jobless lives, will lead to a happily-ever-after and that isn’t unusual.
During the time the above narrated sequence between Joy, a professional and precisely meticulous commodities trader from Wall Street, and her fiancé happens, across the city, another similarly frustrating incident takes place. Jack (Ashton Kutcher), a typical underachiever, who works with his dad’s carpentry business wears his heart on the sleeve and loves exhausting himself in parties rather than scrubbing wood is thrown out of the place because of a hard-to-please dad cum boss. To come over these annoying situations, Joy and Jack, their best friends Tipper and Hater suggest drowning the sorrow with a fun trip to Vegas.
As the Director Tom Vaughan would have it, both the gals and guys pair end up booking the same suite in a hotel. After loath at first sight, four of them manage to go to a pub together and as the night progresses, our lead pair is all tipsy and uncontrollable as if they are having the best time of their lives and end up in a Chapel to read the annuls. They get up all married with strange tattoos and a cheap wedding ring that has been secured from a vending machine. Soon, they realize the mess they are in and hurry on to undo the mistake and seek for an annulment. Again the all pervasive director’s hand puts a fancy into Jack’s all puzzled head to borrow a quarter from Joy to play a slot machine and ends up winning a jackpot of an unbelievable amount like $3 million.
Their fight to own the complete amount leads them to the ever so mordant judge (Dennis Miller) who sentences a six months hard marriage to them. Here starts the journey of the newly weds that sees many situations that force a laughter out of you. The forever more concerned buddies Tipper and Hater help them wear out the other and get the whole amount while Joy wins the confidence of Jack’s dad, Jack gets the better of Joy’s boss. Now, while the fight it out and their lives are literally churned with jack’s dirty house starts being investigated by a neatness loving cribber Joy. Finally, how the pair falls in love while trying to outrun each other is what the film is all about.
While you put the acting skills of the actors in the film, no doubt the supporting cast could have been heavier than the lead characters but finally, with an all party girl Diaz and romantic Kutcher, they maintain the upper hand after all. The sidekicks include a good performance by Queen Latifa as the marriage counselor and Dennis Farina as the precautious boss. Director Tom Vaughan doesn’t do much experimentation on the comedy and the screenplay Dana Fox keeps the show on. Over all, it is a cool summer watch without much to loose if nothing is expected!
Rating: 3/5
