I chanced upon the trailer for this movie while I was browsing through YouTube a few months ago and it seemed promising enough. Considering that the director was responsible for action thrillers like John Q and Face/Off, I was more than intrigued as to how this would turn out.

Here’s my round up of Nick Cassavetes’ (The Notebook) The Other Woman

Please note that there may be spoilers. Read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

Successful attorney Carley Whitten (Cameron Diaz – Shrek) “cleared the bench” for a new guy she’s seeing, Mark King (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau – Mama) who seemed perfect – good-looking as hell, rich, smart, oozing with sex appeal, the works. When Mark tells her that he’s bailing on a dinner plan to go back to his house in the suburbs because of a broken pipe, Carley decides to surprise him in a sexy plumber’s outfit. It is then that she learns that he’a married when Mark’s wife, Kate (Leslie Mann – This Is 40), answers the door.

Carley’s more than willing to put the whole embarrassing ordeal behind her but Kate, distraught upon finding no one else to turn to because “all of their friends are Mark’s friends”, kept on appearing at her doorstep. Together they form a plan to exact revenge, only to find that Mark has another Mistress, young and vivacious Amber (Kate Upton) who they easily recruit into their pay-back plan.

THE GOOD:

1. Leslie Mann. Damn, this woman has got to be one of the most underrated actresses in Hollywood. Her comedic timing is crazy good but you as an audience can still feel the sincerity, so even though technically all most of the things her character’s doing is bat shit crazy, you still get it. You even sympathize where she’s coming from.
2. Nicolaj Coster-Walau. I know him from HBO’s Game of Thrones so I know that he can play the douche role with no problems. I was, however, surprised at how far he was willing to go. There was one scene in a bathroom that really had me going ‘really???’ I’m not the biggest fan of poop jokes but this dude had veins popping out of his neck. Now that’s commitment.
3. The outfits. I loved them all but special nods to what Leslie Mann and Nikki Minaj wore. Those were some pretty cute dresses.

THE BAD:

1. There weren’t enough pranks. The teaser trailer made it seem like this film would be our generation’s First Wives’ Club but there was a severe lack of payback pettiness, which was rather unfortunate because Mark was a character douche enough to deserve it.
2. Cameron Diaz should really stop trying to play bitch roles, or at least commit to them being full-fledged bitches. I don’t want any of this bitch-turned repentant type of thing, you know? It sort of worked in Bad Teacher but that was mostly because of the romantic plot with Jason Segel. That sort of thing just wouldn’t survive an all girl type of movie.
3. Kate Upton was severely underused in this movie. Sure, she was just there as the “boobs” but it seems like she has enough comedic chops to deserve more lines.

THE UGLY:

1. The 2-dimensional characters. It was never really explained why Mark was such a douche bag. Cheating is one thing, and sure, whatever, everybody does it but going as far as pinning all of his fraudulent activities on his loving, unsuspecting wife? Why? Also, see Kate Upton above.
2. Cameron Diaz desperately trying to compete with the sexiness of her co-stars. She’s hot but there were moments that were just sad.

All in all The Other Woman is a film that’s really not-so-good, which is unfortunate because I was really prepared to love it. It’s only saving grace, really, was Leslie Mann who seemed to have committed to squeeze every last ounce of character from her role. There were laughs but they weren’t really enough to cover up the flimsy writing and cardboard characters.

THE VERDICT: A solid 6/10, mostly because of Leslie Mann.

*All photos are lifted from the film’s IMDB page.