Rating: M
Running Time: 112 minutes
Release Date:
16 December 2010
Check local cinema guide for session times and locations
You have to wonder if they were actually on drugs when they were making this film. It really should have been the story of Viagra and the questionable marketing practices of pharmaceutical companies however this is glossed over and instead wrapped up in some sentimental love story to make it oh so palatable. Based on the book, Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman by Jamie Reidy, the resulting screenplay by Edward Zwick (also director), Charles Randolph and Marshall Herskovitz is limp and would benefit from its own performance enhancing treatment. It would be a better film if it explored the social and ethical implications of the medicalization of normal issues into diseases in order to create a market for the pharmaceutical companies to ply their drugs. Instead, it is just a cliché romantic farce. They probably thought they were making some sort of social comment and that there was a serious edge to this film but the group sex and Viagra fuelled parties are just gratuitous and doesn’t enhance the plot.
It becomes a product placement vehicle for Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, which is apparently trailing sales of other erectile dysfunction drugs, which makes the lack of bite just a bit suspicious. That age old formulaic story in which a superficial, womaniser Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) and pharmaceutical salesman meets cute sick girl Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway). She doesn’t immediately fall for his charms instead preferring to maintain a sense of emotional detachment for her own protection. Yet they end up falling in love despite all the hardships and odds and Jamie becomes reformed into a sensitive human being who realises the error of his ways and that love is the only drug! The characters are so cliché even down to Jamie’s loser brother Josh (Josh Gad) who lives on his couch, has a porn addiction and likes to masturbate to his brother’s sex tapes.
Directed by Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai) his past experience in action/thrillers doesn’t appear to have prepared him for the satirical rom comedy. Gyllenhaal (Prince of Persia) is adorable and extremely likeable so you can forgive him for the poor script that he has been handed. Hathaway (Devil Wears Prada) is a bit over the top in this “I am independent and strong” who then suddenly becomes a quivering doe eyed mess of vulnerabilities. The repairing of these two post Brokeback Mountain is not going to save this movie. There are also supporting roles by Oliver Platt as Bruce Jackson, Jamie’s caricature money hungry boss and Hank Azaria as the ridiculously sex crazed and Viagra addicted Dr Knight. Both are probably cringing about their roles.
There is a lot of hype about the sexual content and as they say sex sells but if that’s what you’re looking for then you would be better off investing in a porn film.
2/5 stars
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