Did You Hear About the Morgans?

When I saw the trailer for Did You Hear About the Morgans? I thought it looked cute, but (wisely, in my opinion) decided to forego seeing it in theaters and wait for the DVD. As you can see on the above image, the release date was Christmas 2009, and the DVD was just released this past Tuesday - so that should give you a pretty accurate picture of what a *ahem* brisk business the the film did in theaters. ;-)

Morgans is your basic fish-out-of-water story, as the estranged couple, played by Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker, witness a murder and are thrown into the witness protection program. Now, I used to pretty much loathe Hugh Grant because I used to think he was such a one-note actor, and then I saw Two Weeks Notice and fell in love with that movie and him in it. And I became convinced of something very important - Hugh Grant works best when he's playing himself on-screen. I'm convinced prime examples of this phenomenon are movies like Two Weeks Notice, Music and Lyrics, and Morgans, though this latest effort is definitely the weakest of the trio of Marc Lawrence-directed films.

I think the problem with this movie is that it can't decide what it wants to be. It's trying to be a romance, a comedy, sort of a western, with a dash of suspense - the tone of the script just never really felt "settled" to me, if that makes sense. The best reason to watch the movie is if you want to see Hugh Grant doing what he does best, that is being high maintenence and quirky. :) Sarah Jessica Parker was okay, but I've never really been a huge fan of hers and she struck me as rather mismatched with Grant. She gets by in the role but that's about it.

Morgans has some cute, funny moments, and is a pretty clean movie, and Hugh Grant's performance is definitely the best thing about the picture in my view. It's rather a shame that it comes off as more of a made-for-TV quality movie than a major release.