“Wicker Park” (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
Josh Hartnett gained screen prominence with his performance in “Pearl Harbor.” He followed that role with “Hollywood Homicide” and “Fort Days and Forty Nights.” Both of those movies were irritatingly bad. Now comes “Wicker Park,” the worst of the bunch. We may never hear from Josh Hartnett again.
In this film Hartnett plays a young man named Matthew, who found the right girl but lost her. Now he is engaged to someone new and is stuck in a job he does not enjoy. Just before leaving on a business trip to Japan, Matthew thinks he sees his lost love Lisa (Diane Kruger). He follows her to her apartment but when he confronts the person living there, it is another girl named Lisa (Rose Byrne). Not the one he loved and lost.
He still is obsessed with finding Lisa and has clues that she has been in the apartment where the new Lisa lives. His best friend Luke (Matthew Lillard) thinks he is crazy but he refuses to give up in his search.
The trailer for this movie makes it look like some Alfred Hitchcock tale of obsession and betrayal. It isn’t. It is actually just a love story with a few twists and turns. There is no suspense, and the humor that is in the movie is inadvertent. We laugh at these characters rather than laugh with them.
The acting is pathetic. Hartnett is so oafish and so bumbling that he comes across as the most unappealing of leading men. You never believe for a minute that a girl as lovely and charming as the one played by Kruger would give him a second look much less a second chance.
Kruger played Helen of Troy in the film “Troy.” She is even prettier as Lisa, but her screen presence is zero. She is lovely to look at but a dud to know. The same is true of Rose Byrne who is also a “Troy” alum. She played Brad Pitt’s love interest. In this film she is either stupid or crazy. Whichever, she is boring.
Lillard is best known for playing “Shaggy” in the “Scooby-Doo” movies. That is where he belongs – not in semi-serious movies like this one. Every time he appears on screen you expect to see Freddie Prinze and Sarah Michelle Gellar lurking behind him.
The movie is rated PG-13 for profanity and sexual situations.
It is amazing a movie like this one could get made. It has loser stamped on every aspect – from acting to photography to storyline. Josh Hartnett’s name may draw some fans in the door but his acting will have them fleeing to the exits.
I scored “Wicker Park” a wickedly dull 3 out of 10.
