The Break Up

This movie is all about what happens after the usual ‘guy meets girl, guy falls in love with girl’ bit.

Jennifer Aniston (Brooke) plays a shrill, nagging girlfriend who is constantly trying to change her boyfriend’s ways. Vince Vaughn (Gary) plays a slob of a man who totally takes his girlfriend for granted. After a family dinner gone wrong, Brooke breaks up with Gary and both refuse to move from their prime location condo in Chicago. Even though Brooke says she wants Gary back, she will only do so if he changes. Gary seems to not realize what he’s lost in Brooke and goes out of his way to be obnoxious.

Ala War of the Roses, they both try a variety of tactics to drive the other crazy, from playing video games and music at all hours of the night to dating hot guys to throwing a strip poker game. While some of the tactics are funny, they don’t help you like either character. Instead, both of them come across as selfish and childish, not funny or endearing. The only really interesting character is Jon Favreau, Gary’s best friend who has the best lines and steals scenes from the two bigger stars.

By the end of the movie, no viewer gets what they want. The guys will go away pissed off because the director blurred Aniston’s butt out of one the best revenge bits in the movie and the girls are denied the usual syrupy, happy ending. If you want to watch a movie like this, I recommend War of the Roses with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. That one was far darker and funnier…

5 out of 10