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Easy money

Some things should stay in Vegas
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May 21st, 2008 issue

By Rachel Shimp

COURTESY PHOTO
This is the best idea ever! Kutcher and Diaz try on some serious beer goggles.
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What Happens in Vegas?


Directed by Tom Vaughan
With Cameron Diaz, Ashton Kutcher, Rob Corddry, Lake Bell and Queen Latifah

For the Post
Contrary to what you may have heard, what happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas. Britney Spears’ quickie marriage at the Little White Chapel in 2004 turned into an embarrassing public annulment. Paris Hilton’s bawdy burlesque dance at the nightclub Pure was captured by celebrity bloggers. And those who follow the tabloids know that George Clooney struck gold in Sin City with a certain cocktail waitress.  
So what happens to ordinary people there? The sky’s the limit, but they probably don’t often marry strangers and win $3 million from a slot machine on the same night. No matter, because Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz aren’t playing real people in this Vegas. They’re playing themselves on the verge of a payday as easy as their characters’.
In short, it’s business as usual for summertime movie fare. Only this summer, we’ve got uncommonly good fluff in Iron Man and the upcoming Apatow comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Each comes recommended in its own right, let alone as an alternative to Vegas’ chintzy sparkle. Still, Diaz and Kutcher are very funny people. Take a chance on Vegas if you’re a fan of their adolescent comic bent. But try not to notice them periodically dying a little inside.
New Yorkers Joy McNally (Diaz) and Jack Fuller (Kutcher) go to Vegas on the same weekend to drown their respective sorrows. Jack was fired for gambling while he should’ve been constructing furniture at his father’s shop. Following in pop’s footsteps usually suits two personality types: those with a true passion for the work, and those with no passion for work in general. Kutcher plays Jack as the latter, which makes it unlikely he’d get past a drink with Joy, who seems prohibitively older than him in every way. She’s a commodities trader who’s just been harshly dumped by a dude that you don’t for one second picture her with.
Jack brings along his pal, an inept lawyer named “Hater” (Rob Corddry), and Joy’s got a sidekick named Tipper (Lake Bell), whom Hater not so affectionately calls “Stripper.” The four meet in the bathroom of the suite they were all accidentally booked into. And scream. They throw vases and scream, and attack each other and scream. Slapstick and pratfalls have served romantic comedies well since Bringing Up Baby, but this unbridled hysteria is off the charts. Needless to say, eventually it turns into the foursome sharing a drink, and a quickie marriage with financial complications for Jack and Joy.
One of the weirdest things about Tom Vaughan’s movie is that only about 20 minutes of it is actually spent in Las Vegas. After a whirlwind montage of the most clichéd night-on-the-town imaginable, the action moves to NYC for the rest of the film. As mentioned, Jack and Joy get hitched and win a bucketload of money, but a judge decides to freeze it for six months. He gets the most sensible quip in the film: “Gay people aren’t destroying the sanctity of marriage; people like you are.” He nonetheless orders the couple to work on their marriage, with the help of counselor Dr. Twitchell (Queen Latifah). If they can produce positive results, they’ll get to split the money.
“I can do a lot of things for money. I’m good at stuff,” Jack had shrugged when fired. But during his hard time as a husband, he doesn’t appear to be on the job hunt. It would be interesting to see what else Demi Moore’s husband can do for money besides act in vapid comedies like this one.
Diaz is given slightly better dialogue than Kutcher. She’s filmed dancing in almost every movie she’s in, a trademark of her sassy and high-spirited personality. Her booty-shaking scene in her Underoos made Charlie’s Angels worth the ticket price. But, in Vegas, her ecstatic, drunken dance ends with a dramatic slide across the bar and onto the floor. Later she yells, “Hey, that’s my quarter,” as Jack pulls the lever on their future.
You might want yours back, too.
Rachel Shimp can be reached at rshimp@praguepost.com


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