Serving Sara Starring Matthew Perry, Elizabeth Hurley Directed by Reginald Hudlin Rated PG-13 for crude humor, sexual content and language *1/4 out of 4 Stars, Movie Grade: D+

Theatrical Release: August 23, 2002

Running time: 97 minutes

by Kevin Lang

"Serving Sara," directed by Reginald Hudlin ("The Ladies Man," 2000) and starring Matthew Perry (TV's "Friends") and Elizabeth Hurley, had been tagged as a comedy prior to its release. Yet it lacked the one essential element found in every good comedy; humor.

The simplicity of the plot allowed it to be almost completely summed up by the film's title alone, and it didn't get much more interesting than that. Perry played Joe Tyler, a process server who had to deliver divorce papers to the unknowing Sara Moore (Hurley). Sara was momentarily shocked by her husband's action, and like in any unrealistic film of this type, she quickly pulled herself together for the sake of the supposed forthcoming humor. After serving Sara, Joe unexpectedly encountered her again on a bus that was leaving town. She convinced him to hold off on submitting the papers to his boss, Ray (Cedric the Entertainer), so that she could hire Joe to serve her husband first, and subsequently receive a lot more money from the settlement. At the same time, her husband, played by Evil Dead's Bruce Campbell, was still trying to have her served.

"Serving Sara" failed to hit the comic nerve of the audience. In fact, it seemed like it had no idea where this nerve is located. Most of the attempted humor came from the characters trying to make fun of one another. This included Joe and fellow process server Tony, played by The Soprano's Vincent Pastore. Even their best jokes were poor ones, and I stopped expecting to laugh anymore after the first five minutes. To say that the jokes were first grade humor would be an understatement. First graders wouldn't even have laughed at them.

One of the movie's biggest attempts at humor came when Joe had to pretend that he was a veterinarian and stick his hand into a cow's backside. It was yet another repulsive film scene that tried to find humor by going to the extreme. The purpose for Joe's action was to get the cow excited sexually. A similar scene was done with a human in the movie "Road Trip" (2000), and it seemed to work better there (not the procedure, but the humor), although it wasn't all that funny then either. Most of the other scenes didn't even try to set up the humor as much as this one did, or else I failed to realize altogether that I was supposed to be laughing.

Matthew Perry has been enjoyable in other films such as "Fools Rush In" and "The Whole Nine Yards." In "Serving Sara" he seemed unlike the usual Matthew Perry. In his other films his characters were often more similar to his character of Chandler on Friends. Joe was a slight deviation from the Perry we are used to. He was more serious and less gullible, and Perry is much more appealing as the helpless but caring idiot.

With flat and almost nonexistent humor, "Serving Sara" was another film that will make you wish that you had done something else with your two hours and price of admission. My advice would be to rent "The Whole Nine Yards" (2000), or Reginald Hudlin's much better film, "Boomerang" (1992). Or why not curl up on the couch with a bag of Pop-Secret and enjoy a double feature.

"Serving Sara" Review written August 22, 2002, CTF.

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