Paul, a reluctant groom, is taking part in his bachelor party when he meets Becky, a tiki dancer at the bar. She asks Paul to buy her a beer, which leads to Paul waking up the next morning with Becky in his bed. Panicked and desperate, Paul goes to extreme lengths to keep his indiscretion from his fiancée Karen. Things only become more complicated when Paul realizes Becky is Karen’s cousin and things begin to spiral out of control from there.
A Guy Thing is pretty much what you would expect it to be for an early 2000s rom-com. I actually liked the premise quite a bit, the idea that a man getting married finds himself in a compromising position with his future wife’s cousin, especially when it starts to become clear that said cousin may actually be the right woman for him. Unfortunately, A Guy Thing focuses more on cheap laughs and outlandish, contrived situations than anything of real substance.
Jason Lee, Julia Stiles, and Selma Blair are all enjoyable actors for me, so it’s a shame that their talent is wasted on this kind of script. The scenes between Paul and Becky are really the only scenes that work for me but there simply aren’t enough of them to carry the movie in the midst of all of the gross-out gags. The movie could have benefited from more romance, especially if it wants us to believe Paul would call off his wedding, at the altar, because Becky has opened up his eyes to what his life could be if he stopped playing it safe all of the time.
That’s another problem. There are no real emotional stakes here. The ending is a little too perfect for all of the characters, which makes you wonder what the conflict was in the first place. It’s all a matter of communication that comes a little too late for it to mean anything. Honestly, A Guy Thing plays it safe as not to make its leading man too flawed or unlikable, which is a shame because flawed leading men are a heck of a lot more interesting than the ones who are Too Good to Be True.
There was a lot of potential here for something fun and original, but it’s really just another run-of-the-mill rom-com that goes through the motions, which is really disappointing.
