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Dumb Movie Twist of the Week: Brett Favre Subplot in “Valentine’s Day”
By Kyle | February 11, 2010
The wincingly bad romcom “Valentine’s Day” features a squinty, shaving-cream-model type named Eric Dane (who apparently is on “Grey’s Anatomy”–Patrick Dempsey is also in the movie) who is one of about 20 featured characters in this “Love Actually” ripoff. He plays a Brett Favre-like quarterback who, at age 35 (only 35?) is considering retirement in the offseason, even though he played in the so-called “Championship Game” (you have to admire the way the Super Bowl lawyers intimidate everyone like Dwight Freeney) but lost. Who is this guy, really, though, and what else is ailing him? I’ll spoil it after the jump. The quarterback, who throughout the movie is seen seemingly agonizing about whether to come back for one more year (he has just learned that his team has cut him) is really considering announcing to the world that he’s gay. He does, occasioning some weird jokes on the part of a sports reporter played by Jamie Foxx who claims he has gotten the story as an exclusive (even though the quarterback’s decision is first revealed to the world at a press conference. Memo to screenwriters: “Exclusive” means you’re the only reporter who knows.) Moreover, the Bradley Cooper character, who has been seen throughout the movie flirting with Julia Roberts (as an Army captain–what’s with all the 40-plus-year-old captains in movies these days? Make her a light colonel or something) on a long plane ride, turns out to be the quarterback’s boyfriend and at the end of Valetine’s Day comes home to snuggle with the quarterback. So why all the flirting? Who knows. It’s the least of this movie’s problems.
February 11th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
So, he’s a happy quarterback?
February 11th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
I read that quite a few critics single out how bad Taylor Swift is in this movie even though she is only on screen for a few scenes.
Do you agree?
February 11th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Proof that Julia Roberts is the ideal woman to happy men…, uh, I mean, movie producers. Surefire way to have straight guys not see your movie is to put overacting melodramatic 40ish Julia Roberts in it. Let me guess-she’s an attractive sassy know-it-all again? WIth such realistic casting(wonder Julia wasn’t the QB), should be a big hit, since women watched “Sisterhood of the Traveling Mom Jeans 2″ .And recall that realistic relationship movie where younger woman Julia befriends her boyfriend Ed Harris’s dying ex-wife, Susan Sarandon, over Motown hits.Indeed there’s nothing dying divorcees like better than ex-husbands’ young new things who can sing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. So what do I know?
February 11th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Taylor Swift plays a sort of chipper brain-dead valley girl type…she is kind of annoying but Jamie Foxx and Jessica Biel are far, far worse. Her character doesn’t actually have anything to do except show off her boyfriend, Taylor Lautner.
As for Roberts, she’s not really sassy … or much of anything. She’s supposed to be an Army pilot or something, traveling in uniform. And yet halfway through the flight she changes out of her uniform, seemingly to make herself more attractive to the Bradley Cooper character sitting next to her. We’re meant to be kept in a state of suspense about who she’s visiting (supposedly she’s flying 14 hours each way in order to spend a few hours with someone….not that this makes any sense whatsoever.) But it turns out the person she’s visiting is no great mystery. Not revealing something and making it a mystery are two different things.
February 11th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
I doubt Taylor Swift could be as bad as Jessica Alba. God, seriously, the woman couldn’t act to save her life. Swift is adorable, but this just reaffirms the idea that people should stick with what they do best - in other words, actors should sing, singers shouldn’t act.
February 14th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
sounds kinda, um- over cast, over acted, over schmoozy, just over done lmao