40 Days and 40 Nights
 
reviewed by Doug
Schneider 40
Days and 40 Nights follows the modern-day trend of putting out movies that are like
watching television on a theater screen. Simply cut out the dirty words and the topless
women that appear here and you have something at the intelligence level of an average TV
sitcom. Unfortunately, you have to pay money to see it.
Josh Hartnett plays Matt Sullivan, a guy who hops in and
out of bed with women only to find himself feeling empty inside because of his inability
to get over his ex-girlfriend. His solution to this problem is to "fast"
sexually for 40 days, figuring that this will allow him to regain control over his
emotions and relate better to women in the future. Does it make sense? Not really. But, as
I found out fast, making any sense is not what the filmmakers intended. This is simply a
setup to have Matt and his friends do a lot of stupid things.
40 Days and 40 Nights plays itself out as nothing
but a series of running gags loosely strung together by a threadbare plot. Take each one
on their own and they’re kind of funny. Put them all together in a full-length film
and it gets tiring fast. Furthermore, nothing in this film seems real. Movies
don’t necessarily have to depict real life, but some degree of plausibility is nice.
Instead, the people Matt knows, the place that he works, and the new woman that he falls
for (Shannyn Sossaman) exist only in movies like this one. It all feels just too
artificial -- like TV.
A movie like this doesn’t even qualify as lightweight
entertainment. Lightweight entertainment should still have a cohesive storyline. Portions
of this film are also in bad taste. There’s a crucial scene near the end between Matt
and his ex-girlfriend that, if the genders of the characters were swapped, would be
considered reprehensible and wouldn’t even be considered in a film with this type of
target audience. I won’t give it away, but if you manage to labor your way through
this movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about. When you see it, think about it
for a few moments -- it’s obvious the writers did not. This is a ** film, and there
are certainly better ones out to spend your money on. |
