“Win A Date With Tad Hamilton” (Dreamworks)
“Win A Date With Tad Hamilton” is such a cute, clean movie that it could have been a Debbie Reynolds movie in her heyday. In the movie Kate Bosworth takes the “Debbie” role as a West Virginia girl who wins a date with movie star Tad Hamilton (Josh Duhamel). This of course causes a near panic attack in Pete Monash (Topher Grace), her best friend who has loved her from afar.
The movie’s plot zips right along from the moment Rosalee (Bosworth) and her best girlfriend Cathy (Ginnifer Goodwin) see the ad for the “Win A Date” contest. Suddenly Rosalee is on her way to Hollywood and there meets Tad Hamilton in the flesh.
After Rosalee and Tad have a very prim and proper date Rosalee comes back to West Virginia, Tad soon follows. He wants to be around all the goodness that resides in Rosalee. Plus he wants to get his priorities straight.
This is one of those movies where everyone is in love with the wrong person. Rosalee thinks she is in love with Tad, who is very much in love with himself. Pete is in love with Rosalee while Angelica (Kathryn Hahn), the bartender, is in love with Pete. We never do find out who Cathy is in love with. But this is also one of those movies where there is no doubt who will end up with who.
For the movie to really work you have to pull for Pete over Tad, and this doesn’t happen. Tad, as played by Duhamel, is just too good looking, and so basically a nice guy, that you understand why Rosalee falls for him over Pete. Pete, as played by Grace, is just a semi-nerd who hangs around Rosalee looking like a lovesick cow. You can’t imagine Rosalee picking him over Tad in a million years.
The film is rated PG-13 for some profanity, but basically this is a very clean movie.
If you were to poll teenage girls leaving this film the odds are that ninety-five per cent would say Rosalee should pick Tad over Pete. It may not be what Debbie Reynolds would have done, but in this modern age Tad would be the man of choice.
I scored “Win A Date With Tad Hamilton” a tad too cute 4 out of 10.
