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Bounty Hunter, The
EMAILPRINTColumbia Pictures (Sony)
Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 31 votes
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Comedy | Romance
Written by: Sarah Thorp
Directed by: Andy Tennant
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 19, 2010
DVD: July 13, 2010
Running Time: 110 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Language(s): English | Ukrainian
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for sexual content including suggestive comments, language and some violence
Starring Jennifer Aniston, Gerard Butler, Jason Sudeikis, Dorian Missick, Joel Marsh Garland, and Christine Baranski
Milo Boyd, a down-on-his-luck bounty hunter, gets his dream job when he is assigned to track down his bail-jumping ex-wife, reporter Nicole Hurly. He thinks all that's ahead is an easy payday, but when Nicole gives him the slip so she can chase a lead on a murder cover-up, Milo realizes that nothing ever goes simply with him and Nicole. The exes continually one-up each other – until they find themselves on the run for their lives. They thought their promise to love, honor and obey was tough – staying alive is going to be a whole lot tougher. (Sony Pictures)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Arizona Republic Kerry Lengel
As formula films go, The Bounty Hunter is more enjoyable than most, even if it packs in as many cliches as any.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
In The Bounty Hunter, the couple that foils a bunch of tiresome grade-C thriller goons together stays together. Whether or not that's a recipe for love, it's certainly not a formula for romantic-comedy magic.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
The mishmash ends up as a thoroughly unfunny adult cartoon.
Read Full Review >Variety Justin Chang
This dire battle-of-the-exes action-comedy severely tests audience goodwill by running an indulgent 110 minutes, crammed as it is with half-baked thriller subplots and aimless supporting characters, as if to distract from the central duo's nonstop bickering.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey
Try as they might, Nicole and Milo, as they are called in the movie, don't steam. Wispy vapors is about as good as it gets.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Tennant aims for a contemporary version of "The Thin Man," wedding the banter of sparring spouses with sleuth work. To say that he falls short of the mark is understatement.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
The Bounty Hunter does give Christine Baranski, as an Atlantic City entertainer and Mama Aniston, another opportunity to enthrall us with her drag-queenliness.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
We have to take the sexual tension on faith, as with everything in this formulaic glob of a script.
Read Full Review >New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott
Even if The Bounty Hunter is more plot-driven than your standard romantic comedy, it's never quite as funny as it should be.
Read Full Review >Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore
Aniston doesn’t bring her old A-game to this. But at least she’s not quiet and reserved and no-energy, her approach to too many roles of late. Butler makes the most of his Neanderthal rut.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
The only thing that Butler and Aniston have in common, however, is identical Aruba-bronze skin tones: they seem to have been sprayed with the same can.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
For his sins poor Stewart is kidnapped, tortured and shot up with horse tranquilizer after his leg is broken. It’s disturbing, and somewhat baffling too, until you grasp that this hapless sucker is a surrogate for the audience.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Brian Miller
The script has all the spunk of Ikea-bookcase assembly instructions.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
Inexplicably, Butler continues to get work in romantic comedies despite his limited range and boorish persona.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
If there's anything to like about The Bounty Hunter, it's Christine Baranski doing a Joan Rivers impersonation.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
A painfully contrived romantic comedy/thriller that may (or may not) have brought Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston together as a real-life couple.
Read Full Review >St. Louis Post-Dispatch Calvin Wilson
Perhaps tracking down the folks responsible for this film should be Milo's next assignment.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
Yes, it's every bit as brainless as the trailers suggest.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Tennant and his actors have done the bare minimum to carry their lifeless movie past the finish line, and their apathy reads a lot like contempt.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
That's what The Bounty Hunter has rustled up -- along with a listless rom-com, a feeble thriller and a supporting cast of clueless characters.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli
Works overtime for just a handful of chuckles and a few big yuks.
Read Full Review >St. Petersburg Times Steve Persall
None of these complaints would matter if The Bounty Hunter possessed even a smidgen of inspired comedy. It doesn't.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
A comedy of remarriage that makes divorce look like a state of grace.
Read Full Review >Boxoffice Magazine Mark Keizer
If "Midnight Run" and "His Girl Friday" had an unwanted, mutant baby, it would be The Bounty Hunter, a romantic comedy where the jokes sputter and die immediately after exiting the character’s mouths.
Read Full Review >Time Out New York Lisa Rosman
You know it’s bad when a caper comedy makes you long for the Goldie Hawn–Chevy Chase showcases of yore.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
This synthetic comedy is instantly grating.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Someday, The Bounty Hunter and last month’s “Cop Out” will be featured in a cable movie double bill as the two worst 1988 films of 2010.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Dan Kois
Slack when it should be tight, dull when it needs to be sharp, The Bounty Hunter represents a failed attempt to make an Elmore Leonard movie without having to pay Elmore Leonard money.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Andy Klein
At points, the film sinks below the level of competent.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 3.0 (out of 10) based on 31 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Aron J gave it a0:
The same pile of crap that has been made over and over (and over). Every scene is predictable, i guessed the entire movie from just the poster, i was right about all of it.
Sam J. gave it a1:
Just watching the trailer said it all. Sure it has Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, but the script/plot stinks so much that I pretty much left the movie theater after 20 minutes of watching it.
Gus W gave it a0:
This is the worst film I have seen in 20 years. I never laughed. I didn't care. The characters were unlikeable. The plot was unbelievable. The writing was intolerable. People who see this film may not want to return to the theater for months. A dreadful, awful, cruel waste of time and money.
Mary Movie gave it a2:
Save your money. Instead rent this at a REDBOX as a "safe" movie for a couple, if nothing else is available. The movie contains just a teeny tiny touch of action for the male and a smidgen of believable romance for the female, although both elements are done poorly. With all the hype of the stars' off-screen romance and the oft-repeated trailer on TV, I was looking forward to this movie. This is my first movie critique -- I was so disappointed I felt it necessary to warn others.
Devin K gave it a1:
Ooouuuccchhh. This movie is terrible. Bad doing Bad things. You have to like RomComs in order just to even accept what is going on. Definitely not the worse (cue: Sandra Bullock) BUT DEFINITELY NOT GOOD.
Daniel S gave it a4:
If you have nothing better to do and you just want to waste time then this movie is great for you. It's not painful to watch like twilight, but it isn't anything like a decent movie.
Chad S gave it a3:
Nicole, an investigative journalist lucky enough to still be writing for a newspaper, skips her mandated court appearance so she can work on her story, and becomes a fugitive of the law. Since her crime is barely a misdemeanor, it seems a bit overblown that a bounty hunter would be warranted for such a minor offense. This is a police matter, or a PETA concern, but Milo, a former cop, is given the assignment and rejoices at the opportunity to track down his ex-wife. Going into this film, the moviegoer already knows that the bounty hunter will get his woman in more ways than one. It's the chase, the pursuit of the bounty hunter's former spouse, like a domesticized version of Andrew Davis' "The Fugitive" that might have given this film some heat, had Nicole been hard to outfox. She's not; she's too easy to find. "The Bounty Hunter" is a comedy all right, but it's the wrong kind: romantic instead of screwball. Even though he incapacitates Nicole by throwing her in a trunk, and she tasers Milo in a motel room(dealbreakers both for most reconciling couples), the old feelings return, as the film jettisons its premise in favor of a routine crime drama, where the bounty hunter becomes "Her Boy Friday" instead. There's at least one storyline too many, as this tired film completely loses its footing when Milo stops hunting Nicole, and hunts her bounty instead in tandem. "The Bounty Hunter" should have been an all-out war of the sexes: the woman constantly outsmarting the man, like Jane Sibbett in an episode of "Quantum Leap", where she's always one step ahead of the sheriff's body that Sam(Scott Bakula) inherits.
