Stars Gerard Butler, Jennifer Aniston, Christine Baranski, Jason Sudeikis, Natalie Morales.

Gerard Butler might just be the most employed actor working in Hollywood. He seems to pop up on cinema screens every other month.

He might also be, however, the most undiscerning. In any event, he is certainly in the running for having appeared in the longest string of duds.

And The Bounty Hunter is the latest.

Butler is Milo Boyd, a debt-ridden bounty hunter who thinks all his Christmases have come at once when he is assigned to bring in his bail-jumping ex-wife Nicole (Jennifer Aniston), from whom he had a less than amicable split.

But Nicole is a wily journalist chasing a hot lead on a murder story and continually tries to give Milo the slip. When their lives are threatened, the duo are forced to work together and it is then that they start to question their true feelings for one another.

This could be the chance of their lives to put their marriage back together – if they can only stay alive.

This action-based romantic comedy brings to mind 1990 flick Bird On A Wire, in which warring former couple Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn are brought together under similar circumstances. 

Both films attempt to channel old-style screwball comedies of the likes that Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant starred in. Sadly, The Bounty Hunter doesn’t come close to capturing the brilliance of Howard Hawks and neither do

Jen and Gerry manage to recreate the on-screen chemistry of either couple. And that’s despite rumours of an on-set romance.

A film such as this depends on the performances of the two leads and the chemistry between them, as well as the script. The Bounty Hunter has none of the above.

Instead of the witty repartee that partly defines the screwball comedy sub-genre, here we get the exchange of cheap insults and low-brow comedy resulting in a largely humourless, unsophisticated and uneasy blend of action, crime drama and (un-)comedy.

The few laughs that do exist in this charmless flick come courtesy of an able supporting cast – respected names such as Carol Kane, Jeff Garlin and Christine Baranski.

With Jen looking stunning throughout in a super-small outfit, super-glossy locks and super-tanned and toned limbs and Gerard looking hunky with his oiled and muscular super-manly torso on display, there’s more than enough eye candy for both sexes.

But that’s probably the only thing that makes The Bounty Hunter worth watching.

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