For those who read the movie poster for \A Guy Thing"" before entering the theatre, two things stand out. First is the movie's likable pair of Jason Lee (""Chasing Amy"") and Julia Stiles (""Save the Last Dance""). Second, the tag line reads, ""Boy meets girl. Boy meets girl's cousin."" With a horrid concept and script, ""A Guy Thing"" relies on the charisma of Lee and Stiles to generate any humor at all. Paul (Lee) is about to wed Karen (Selma Blair). His goal is to make it through his bachelor party without doing something he'll regret. He awakes the next morning next to a young dancer from the party, Becky (Stiles).
As he shoves her out the door just before Karen arrives, he decides to cover up his indiscretion. Of course, he runs into Becky again. It turns out Becky is Karen's cousin. As Paul tries to cover his mistake, the hilarious antics supposedly ensue. The film's plot is spotty and disjointed, which merely accentuates the script's lack of humor. Jumping from sub-plot to sub-plot but never finishes any of them, ""A Guy Thing"" seems to simply be a series of situations that the writers thought would be interesting.
Director Chris Koch's arrangement and editing of ""A Guy Thing"" creates a disorienting, blocky film. Yet the material itself not only lacks humor, but insults the intelligence of the audience at every possible turn. Not one character even remotely adheres to realism.
There is no underlying momentum to carry the movie from beginning to end and the ""funny situations"" fall on their comedic faces, leaving the viewer to hope the next one will be better.
If there is one saving grace to ""A Guy Thing,"" it is seeing Jason Lee opposite Julia Stiles. Both are able to make paper-thin characters appear interesting. When both are onscreen, the film is bearable, even enjoyable. When left to the script material, the audience is left to merely cringe.
