Movie Notes: Meet Bill

November 1st, 2008

= 1 star

Starring Aaron Eckhart, Elizabeth Banks, Jessica Alba
Directed by Bernie Goldmann, Melisa Wallack

Synopsis

Middle-aged Bill (Aaron Eckhart) works at his father-in-law’s bank and dreams of opening a donut franchise, until one day he realizes his wife (Elizabeth Banks) is cheating on him. A mid-life crisis ensues, but with the help of a high-school student, Bill begins to make sense of his life.

The Good

• Aaron Eckhart makes the sad-sack Bill likable through endearing quirks: hiding Snickers in his desk and creating a cut-out of his nemesis, as he did for the smarmy PR guy in Thank You For Smoking. For the first half hour, I thought this flick was going somewhere.

The Bad

• All characters besides Bill are at best shallow and at worst pointless. There’s so little character development behind Bill’s wife, that she comes across as unfaithful for the most trivial, superficial reasons. Bill’s highschool kid friend is like a child-stalker, showing up at the worst moments plot-wise. One scene of the kid demonstrating lacy underwear to a mall worker (Jessica Alba) killed what little interest I had up until that point.
• So many situations leading up to hilarity that never cross that final line into laughs. This flick is an outline for a far funnier one.
• A completely unsatisfying ending. Here, I’ll ruin it for you: Bill finally decides he hates his life and is leaving town for “something better.” What is this new life? Where is he going? He doesn’t say.

Conclusion

Skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, and skip it. Not even worth the time as a free, Netflix “Watch Now” title.

IMDB: Meet Bill
Wikipedia: Meet Bill
Rotten Tomatoes: Meet Bill 16%