"The Bachelor" meets "The Bachelorette" in Donald Petrie's How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, which stars Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson as opposing generals in the age-old battle of the sexes. He's an ad rep who's bet his boss he can get any woman to fall madly in love with him within 10 days. She's a Cosmo-style writer who's accepted an assignment wherein she will get picked up and then dumped by a guy in 10 days by doing all the things a Cosmo girl shouldn't do, like insist that he take her to a Celine Dion concert. Apart, they're a couple of sexist jerks, although the movie doesn't seem to think so. Together, they're a romantic comedy waiting to happen. And if I say I was still waiting for it to happen an hour and a half later, you shouldn't take that as a sign of the movie's lack of appeal. The crowd I saw it with lapped it right up.
I did like the premise, although I thought the movie might have been better if McConaughey and Hudson were both trying to get dumped. As it is, McConaughey spends most of his time in reactive mode while Hudson tries to make his life a living hell by (among other things) leaving her tube of Vagisil on his bathroom sink, allowing her dog to pee on his pool table and nicknaming his manhood Princess Sophia. All funny ideas, but Hudson may not be the comedian to put them over. Heck, she may not be a comedian at all. It's hard to tell, actually, since the script never gets close to even an average episode of "Friends." Still, I can imagine David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston in these roles, and everything snaps into place ' the romance, the comedy. For good chemistry, you need to start with good chemicals.