A high-powered career woman falls in love with a sports writer in ""When in Rome."" Sound familiar? Maybe because the storyline steals plot details from the Hollywood classic ""Roman Holiday."" Unlike the original version, though, ""When in Rome"" is just plain bland.
Beth (Kristen Bell) is a high-strung curator at the Guggenheim Museum and who is under extreme pressure to create a flawless exhibit for a members' gala event that is the ‘must-be at' occasion of the season.
When her sister decides to get married, Beth flies to Rome for a mere 48 hours, where audiences get about 15 minutes of straight-up Italian clichés disguised as vignettes: cobblestone piazza filled with jugglers wearing suspenders, artists painting and students practicing violin. The story even revolves around the Fountain of Love, which supposedly grants wishes to those who toss in a coin.
Beth is immediately drawn to Nick (Josh Duhamel) because he has a Blackberry with a signal. After vowing to be open to the possibility of falling in love, Beth suddenly discovers Nick mid-smooch with a gorgeous Italian woman. Upset and drunk, Beth decides to take a stroll in the Fountain of Love and save others from the disaster that is love by taking four of the coins.
Instead, a weird series of events commence: Four men who threw the coins that Beth grabbed suddenly stop everything they're doing and fall in love with her. They start by tracking her down in New York. Nick also begins to pursue her, leading Beth to believe that she took his coin out of the fountain too. Beth is now stalked by a magician (Jon Heder), a painter (Will Arnett), a male model (Dax Shepard), a sausage maker (Danny DeVito) and Nick.
The love-struck men try to prove their love to Beth in their own unique and weird ways. It's obvious that the writers meant for it to be hysterical, but instead it is uncomfortable to the point that you want the movie to end.
There are, however, some comedic moments to the movie that add a moderate amount of value to the film. Duhamel has a gift for physical comedy that should be utilized in his future roles. Duhamel's character is an ex-football star whose career ended after being struck by lightning, earning him the nickname of ""The Hit."" Throughout the movie, the nickname comes back to haunt Nick at the most inopportune moments. The audience is completely taken off guard, and you can't help but double over laughing at his bad luck.
On the other hand, there are scenes that are very bizarre and completely disjointed with the rest of the plot, including a brief appearance by Shaquille O'Neal, and a dinner at a sensory deprivation restaurant where everything is pitch black and the servers wear night vision goggles.
Even though the plot and writing may be bland and boring, the chemistry between Bell and Duhamel is the movie's saving grace. But even then, it's not that difficult to develop chemistry between two of Hollywood's most attractive actors.
