Breakin' All the Rules: Down with love

Breakin' All the Rules is instantly forgettable romantic comedy

By Anthony Allison

Don't expect Gentlemen Prefer Blondes or The Philadelphia Story. But Breakin' All the Rules sure is smart counter-programming for viewers not in the mood for a three-hour Homeric epic: Daniel Taplitz's lightweight piece of silliness is half that length.

Jamie Foxx plays the author of a self-help book on breaking up whose wealthy publisher (Peter MacNicol) enlists his help in ditching leech-like gold-digger Jennifer Esposito. Meanwhile, Jamie's cousin (Morris Chestnut) doesn't want to be ditched by physical therapist girlfriend Gabrielle Union. But, due to a predictably flimsy plot twist, Jamie hooks up with Gabby and Morris gets down with Jennifer. Complications get further complicated when Jamie's ex (Bianca Lawson) reappears.

While Foxx, Chestnut and Union go through the romantic comedy motions with blissful indifference, MacNicol (Sophie's Choice) apparently believes that comic acting involves nothing more than pulling (un)funny faces. All four are effortlessly upstaged by Jamie's pug.

Studio honchos are doubtless praying the cute pooch will deflect attention from the pic's leading man. In January, Foxx struck a plea deal with Louisiana prosecutors in which he received a six-month suspended jail sentence, a $1,500 fine and two years' probation for an altercation with police outside Harrah's casino in New Orleans last spring.

They needn't worry. Taplitz, a TV writer whose last movie directing gig was 1997's Commandments, in which Aidan Quinn set out to break all 10 of them, has devised a film that definitely abides by comedy's golden rule. Breakin' All the Rules is so instantly forgettable that the film's own publicists somehow switched Esposito and Lawson's photographs on the website. So it's a sure thing that viewers, too, will forget all about it before they even exit the theater.