Before you take your honey to see the land mine of a date flick “Breakin’ All the Rules,” stop and think for a minute.
If both of you are truly happy in your relationship, then this mildly amusing tale of a jilted lover who writes a book on breakups might provide a few chuckles.
If there are cracks in your foundation, however, you might find your partner laughing just a little too hard at this formulaic romantic comedy that does little to showcase the talents of stars Jamie Foxx and Gabrielle Union.
Foxx plays Quincy, a magazine writer asked by his mincing boss (Peter MacNicol) to handle a round of firings. This task, coupled with the unexpected departure of his fiancee, inspires Quincy to write a guy’s manual on how to terminate your lover, featuring such techniques as “the passive-aggressive bullet straight to the head.”
It just so happens that Quincy’s cousin Evan (Morris Chestnut, in a cocky playboy role he’s perfected in several previous movies) is about to cut loose his girlfriend Nicky (Union) at his traditional three-month expiration date. Quincy’s boss is trying to escape a relationship with a gold-digging manipulator. Through a series of events that make “The Matrix” look plausible, Quincy and Nicky fall in love.
Rather than leap from the screen, the chemistry between Foxx and Union requires a leap of the imagination that no amount of swelling music or slow-motion camerawork can manufacture. Hopefully Foxx was just immersing himself in his pitiful character, because if Quincy’s ashy lips, tired eyes and bird’s nest hairdo are here to stay, Foxx’s status as a leading man is on its way out.
The sad thing is, Foxx can be entertaining in both comedic and dramatic starring roles, as he proved in projects like Oliver Stone’s “Any Given Sunday” and his portrayal of Tookie Williams, founder of the Crips gang, in a recent TV movie. So the lack of laughs or passion here should be blamed on writer-director Daniel Taplitz, who in his second theatrical effort provides no indication there should be a third.
The director had plenty to work with, especially in Union, who would have had a substantial starring role by now if such a thing existed for black women not named Halle Berry. But Union’s attempts to portray vulnerability and confusion are sabotaged by the script, which include nothing Union hasn’t done before in the “urban” (translation: black) relationship flicks “Deliver Us from Eva” and “Two Can Play That Game.”
Ultimately, as Foxx and Union careen toward their inevitable love match, we’re forced to wring laughs from cliched conventions like an amorous senior citizen and the exploits of a thirsty dog. When it comes to comedy, “Breakin’ All the Rules” breaks far too few.