BY NICK ROGERS
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER, SPRINGFIELD, IL

Perhaps it’s accepted now that any movie headlined by a member of the “Friends” cast will be akin to spending 90 minutes on the rack. And with movies such as “Three to Tango” and “The Whole Nine Yards,” Matthew Perry has contributed his fair share to that cinematic curse.

But after “Serving Sara,” his latest, his co-stars should be kneeling at Perry’s feet. Now that it has gotten this bad, they’ve all got a free pass. If he so chooses, David Schwimmer could make a movie co-starring Gallagher and Yakov Smirnoff. It would have to be better.

Perry plays Joe Tyler, a down-and-out process server who really wants to start his own winery. Despite months of unsuccessful work serving papers, he’s given one last chance on one big job by his boss. Elizabeth Hurley plays Sara Moore, a beautiful, supportive woman who has nonetheless been jilted by her no-good, Texas rancher husband (Bruce Campbell). If Joe serves her divorce papers, he’ll get $5,000.

Joe succeeds, but Sara offers him the chance to tear up her papers and serve her husband first. That way, she will have a better chance at a good settlement, of which she offers Joe $1 million. Joe agrees, but he and Sara must evade rival process servers, her ex’s violent security guard and, naturally, his burgeoning attraction toward her, before he can collect.

Essentially, all that writers David Ronn and Jay Scherick can muster is a rehash of the worst possible components from a decade’s worth of bad comedies. Handicapped jokes, fat kid jokes, stereotypical jabs at every possible ethnicity, the third-straight film in which comedian Jerry Stiller cracks wise about his poorly functioning prostate – all of it is off base, mean-spirited and not the least bit humorous.

The centerpiece, though, is an inexplicably extended sequence involving Perry’s arm and the business end of a bull. Not only is this 10-minute bit obvious and wholly disgusting, it’s ripped off from another movie. It wasn’t funny in 2001’s “Say It Isn’t So” either, but at least there it lasted only 30 seconds.

It takes a lot of energy to wade through material this uninspired. Perry looks gravely ill throughout, enough so that you could feel sorry for him were his character not a completely reprehensible scumbag. It’s almost rewarding to watch Joe getting pummeled in the name of physical comedy.

And again, as in every comedy she’s done since “Austin Powers,” Hurley smugly struts her way through the material as though she were a natural born comedienne. She should not take the Estee Lauder people off her speed-dial, although a wholly unnecessary first-act chase through one of that company’s salons guarantees against that.

After “Master of Digsuise,” “Pluto Nash” and this – three of the worst films this year – one can only hope that September’s comedies will be better.

Nick Rogers can be reached at 217-747-9587 or nick.rogers@sj-r.com