What Love Is (2007)
Runtime: 87 mins
Genre: Comedies
Starring: Cuba Gooding, Sean Astin, Matthew Lillard, Mars Callahan, Anne Heche
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Reviews
Shrill, abrasive, cartoonishly over-the-top and badly titled.
In its own peculiar way, What Love Is is a testament to the redemptive power of words. Thankfully, Callahan knows to keep it short and sweet, lest his audience go mad from the noise.
It could be that What Love Is is what lovers of either gender can like, thanks to equal parts misogynistic machismo and locker-room girl talk, all of it tied together with just a little bit of cozy romantic reality.
Gooding is solid in the leading-man role. He has some of the best lines, and he's pretty much the only character you could stand to hang out with in real life.
Now and then there is something strangely right about films this defiantly wrongheaded, but What Love Is never rises above the leaden, overbearing qualities of Callahan's dialogue and staging.
What Love Is overflows with mind-numbing patter, bizarrely delivered with the arch formality of David Mamet, with the net effect of being yelled at for no reason.
Shot on HD over the course of a week, calling-card pic looks and sounds like an Off Off Broadway play.
A shrill cacophony of puerile clichés about men and women and sex, delivered in adrenaline-driven harangues and arrogant lectures. When the stage clears, all that's left is the unpleasant odor of all that hot air.
The level of insight in this romantic comedy’s dialogue makes the oeuvre of Ed Burns look like Racine.
Too wordy frozen stage play with Matt Lillard a spitting, screaming, out-of-control embarrassment.
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by: Moviebuff45 3/26/07


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