Heigl and Kutcher in Killers: There may be some laughs in there somewhere, but not many of them are making it to the screen.
Killers
Directed by Robert Luketic
Written by Bob DeRosa and Ted Griffin
Starring Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kutcher, Tom Selleck and Catherine O'Hara
Classification: PG
Ashton Kutcher's memoirs could be entitled Enter Smirking. The actor always appears with a satisfied grin, as if something funny happened in the wings. So here's an idea: Maybe filmmakers should shoot what Ashton's up to off-camera, because not many laughs are making it to the screen.
His latest, Killers, is a another flyweight comedy. Disappointed in love, Jennifer (Katherine Heigl) joins her parents on French holidays. She meets cute-with-sexy Spencer (Kutcher) in an elevator. Jen's got an upset stomach. He's wearing swim trunks lower than his sexy French murmur.
Poof - tummy all better. Jen and Spencer marry, moving to a perfect, leafy suburb. All's well until Jen comes home to find Spence choking a psychopath. "Let's just say I work for the blah-blah-blah," he explains, "and they gave me a license to blah."
Okay, so her husband is a CIA killer. Jen can accept that. Except that's not the bad news. Turns out someone has a contract out on Spencer. Jen, too, probably.
If Killers were as crazy as it sounds, the film might have been a riot. But it's more silly than anything. And safely old-fashioned, nostalgic for Rock and Doris horseplay.
There's fun to be had. Catherine O'Hara plays Heigl's mother and chugalugs vodka throughout, enduring her square-bottomed Republican husband (Tom Selleck). More good news: Heigl does a perfectly acceptable simmering boil - Doris Day's specialty. And Kutcher has Rock Hudson's waxy mannequin looks. Better still, like Rock, he seems incapable of taking romantic comedies seriously.
What this movie needs is a Frank Tashlin or Norman Jewison, filmmakers with a sense of mischief, which is what made for Day's best comedies. Unfortunately, director Robert Luketic merely makes his stars look good - as if his job is carving a cute couple on a wedding cake.
Special to The Globe and Mail