Nick Cassavetes’ female buddy movie at least begins positively. Leslie Mann plays Kate King, devoted wife to New York business tycoon Mark ( Game Of Thrones ’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who soon discovers her hubby is cheating on her.
The other woman is Cameron Diaz’s slick lawyer Carly Whitten, who has no idea her new man is married. Until, that is, she turns up on his doorstep in short skirt, heels and tool belt – trying to rock a sexy plumber look – and bumps into Kate.
Heartbroken and spun-out, Kate confronts Carly at her office, then starts stalking her and eventually invites herself over for dinner. Soon enough, they’re drinking spirits and trying on Carly’s impressive shoe collection (all to a soft-rock cover of Pat Benatar’s ‘Love Is The Battlefield’). Worse is to come when Kate and Carly realise that Mark has already moved on and is cheating on them both with another girl – the genial Amber (Kate Upton).
“This is so unoriginal, Mark, so cliché,” rants the put-out Carly, gawping at Amber’s hourglass bikini-clad figure. But the same could be levelled at the film’s second half, as the girls befriend Amber and the trio (“the lawyer, the wife and the boobs” as Carly terms them) plot revenge.
Kate pours hair remover in his shampoo, Amber sets him up with a transvestite and Carly pours laxative in his drink (leading to a porcelain-pounding scene that’d probably turn even the Jackass crew’s stomachs). And that’s just for starters.
Reuniting with Diaz after My Sister’s Keeper , Cassavetes too often deploys gross-out gags to little effect, as when Kate’s dog takes a dump, on camera, in Carly’s apartment (as critical reactions go, it's pretty spot-on). Meanwhile, Mann overacts while real-life model Upton, despite milking her Bo Derek beach scene to the max, barely knows what acting is.
Still, at least she’s better than singer Nicki Minaj, who cameos as Carly’s secretary and speaks like her jaw’s been wired shut. If only that were so.
Verdict: A few lowbrow laughs… but far too many one-note characters, performances, and plot points to make them worth showing up for.
