Josh Hartnett’s charismatic performance in 1999’s “The Virgin Suicides” seemed to announce a major new talent to Hollywood. But as it goes in tinsel town, the packaging is more important than the product, and Hartnett’s talents have taken a backseat to his boyish good looks.
Since “Suicides,” Hartnett has fallen into Freddie Prinze Jr. territory: taking roles that cater more to his good looks and playing characters that exist to serve as the perfect fantasy to adolescent girls.
The shift from darkly comic teen drama to Jerry Bruckheimer produced cash cow paid off for Hartnett in the 2000 “Titanic” rip-off, “Pearl Harbor,” in which Hartnett shared the Leonardo DiCaprio-shaped spotlight with Ben Affleck.
The entertainment media’s desperate attempt to turn Hartnett into a teen idol has created legions of new fans, which are the obvious target audience for his latest outing, “40 Days and 40 Nights.”
The film stars Hartnett as Matt, a graphic design artist looking for a way to fill in the “black hole” created when his girlfriend dumps him. After finding casual sex with gorgeous girls unfulfilling, Matt decides to go celibate for the 40 days of Lent. The first day of his mission leads him to Erica (Shannyn Sossamo, “A Knight’s Tale”), whom he courts throughout the course of the film as they debate the deep philosophies surrounding the alternate universe of celibate dating.
As Matt’s friends and coworkers catch wind of his quest, he becomes a thing of local legend, and the bets are high on how long such a pretty guy can go without screwing the healthy population of Maxim cover girls that surround him. Needles to say, Matt’s quest provides plenty of unpredictable cracks on the sex-obsessed nature of men and pointless drama between he and Erica, who can’t understand “Why doesn’t he just wanna have sex with me?”
The film plays like an episode of “The Real World,” with hip-looking locations, handsome, stylish twentysomethings, and misguided romantic drama that exists to keep the audience entertained with guilty pleasure.
Keeping the “American Pie” resurgence of graphic sex-comedy alive, the film has an abundance of hard-ons, semen-like liquids, and tossing off for those who didn’t feel satisfied with this genre when the ’80s ended.
The romantic chemistry between Hartnett and Sossamon is as bad as anything the ’80s ever put out. Their scenes together are reminiscent of an *NSync video, with a happy/sad pop song in the background, a collage of flirtation, and even an orgasm-giving flower, which is the film’s attempt to compete with “9 1/2 Weeks” for the most ridiculous sex scene ever.
Though Hartnett does show promise as a comedic lead, his talents are wasted on a film whose only destiny is to make a bundle from twelve-year-olds’babysitting money. Thirteen years after directing “Heathers,” one of the smartest and most original teen comedies ever, Michael Lehmann is another wasted talent who seems to be trying to fit in with the depressing direction of popular American comedies. Though put together nicely, his grace as a director is no match for the scripts uninspired antics.
Whatever coincidental charm may come out of “40 Days and 40 Nights,” this is the kind of film that exists for the haircuts, outfits, and soundtrack. All the film’s characters are young, beautiful, well-dressed, and living in a universe reminiscent of a Diesel add. However, these styleless and emotionally devoid films about stylish and emotionally- limited characters seem to do very well with a generation that is becoming increasingly prioritized with the outfits and soundtracks than with any real growth in a decreasingly expressionistic medium. Grade: D