BREAKIN’ ALL THE RULES
[] (two stars)
Insipid comedy of errors. Running time: 85 minutes. Rated PG-13 (language, sexual themes). At the Empire, the Loews 84th, the Union Square, others.
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JAMIE Foxx showed such promise in the underrated Oliver Stone football epic “Any Given Sunday” that it’s painful to see him mug his way through “Breakin’ All the Rules,” the latest addition to that generally wretched genre, the buppie romance comedy.
Like most movies in that category, this one is made by people who apparently assume their target audience will put up with a lazy and unimaginative product as long as it features black characters who live “large” in a mostly black professional environment and who sound (or try to sound) “street.”
That said, “Breakin’ All the Rules” is not entirely bereft of chuckles, though it misses one comic opportunity after another (the best jokes are in the trailer).
And there is something to be said for the way the screenplay by writer-director Daniel Taplitz makes a valiant effort to update venerable mistaken identity plots familiar from a Shakespearean comedy of errors.
But for the most part, “Breakin’ All the Rules” feels like a Richard (“Love Actually”) Curtis film but without the inventiveness and wit.
Quincy (Foxx) is an L.A. magazine editor whose girlfriend drops him during their engagement party to go to Paris with his “best friend” (whom we never meet).
Meanwhile, at work, his wimpy white boss, Phillip (Peter MacNicol from “Ally McBeal”), has asked him to fire 15 percent of the staff (all the white characters are pathetic, crazy or both).
Quincy reads up on the psychology of termination, quits his job and then writes a best-selling book on how to break up with a lover with minimal hassle and stress.
As a result of the book’s success, Quincy’s womanizing cousin, Evan (Morris Chestnut), asks him for help in dumping his adorable girlfriend, Nicky (Gabrielle Union), and Quincy’s boss-turned-publisher Phillip asks for help in getting rid of his gold-digger girlfriend, Rita (Jennifer Esposito).
Quincy and Nicky meet in a bar, lie about their identities and fall for each other. Rita sleeps with Evan, thinking he is Phillip. (Evan thinks she’s one of Quincy’s literary groupies.)
Everyone’s lies threaten to wreck any happiness until all comes right in the end.