Movie review: All About Steve

by John P. Meyer

Blind (date), deaf (kid), and downright dumb (movie).

O.K., here's the thing: There's something about Mary. (Sorry, it had to be said.)

We're talking Mary Magdalene Horowitz (Sandra Bullock), a single-minded crossword creator ("cruciverbalist," actually) who exercises her craft in the service of a small circulation daily. Her crosswords appear only weekly, much to her consternation, and she's crusading for her editor (Holmes Osborne) to let her go daily with the puzzles - "like the New York Times." Because, see, she's so enthusiastically dedicated to the creation of crosswords that all other areas of her life are neglected. Irrelevant, even. At least to her.

All About Steve finds Sandra Bullock in full-on romantic comedy ingenue mode, and while she wears these tried-and-true genre shoes well, there's an argument to be made that her character here is more annoying than endearing.

Mary's more than a little bit dysfunctional -- in fact, she's semi-autistic, living with her parents and launching into extended (and often embarrassingly personal) monologues with complete strangers. She's an endless reservoir of ephemera who can actually succeed in putting the kibosh on a torrid makeout session by opening her mouth too much and too often. (A rare talent indeed.)

A studly cameraperson for CCN named Steve (Bradley Cooper) picks Mary up at her parents' house one evening. ("I'm going out on a date," Mary boasts to her editor the day before. "A blind one.") They make it only as far as the front seat of Steve's SUV before affection-starved Mary attacks the unsuspecting beefcake as if he was -- well -- a cake made of beef, and she a ravenous carnivore. The hapless Steve proves to have a lower-than-average tolerance for idle banter, managing to actually disengage during the breast-fondling stage of things. Because he knows a cuckoo when he hears one. (But still, man, that's some hardcore discipline!)

In order to gracefully break away from the rest of the evening's planned activities, Steve feigns a phone call and plays the old "I've gotta go cover some breaking news in Cleveland" card. Before fully extricating himself, he makes an idle comment along the lines of "sorry you can't join me." Mary latches onto this with both emotionally needy hands, and the plot coagulates.

From here the story careens into randomville, with Mary (in her signature red vinyl boots) chasing down Steve and his production team (Thomas Haden Church as a blowhard egotistical reporter; Ken Jeong as a level-headed producer) in whatever location their wacky assignments have taken them. In Oklahoma they're covering a parental legal battle involving a three-legged child; in Galveston they're tasked with riding out and reporting on a hurricane. (If Keith David -- as CCN station chief Corbitt -- had his druthers, they'd be blown out to sea by the storm, never to be heard from again. Plus, it would make for compelling copy.)

It's in Colorado where the various players (muddled motivations and all) come together for a final, character-defining confrontation. There, in the field bordering a county fair, a group of deaf school children fall into a pit, leading to a) a media feeding frenzy, and b) personal acts of extreme idiocy on the parts of two characters.

Director Phil Traill's three ring circus of a movie (story credit -- if that's the right word -- going to Kim Barker) has at least one too many legs to stand on, attempting to disguise the shallowness of its plot with half-hearted slapstick humor and a full complement of supporting characters to act as window dressing. Jason Jones plays Vasquez, a rival reporter who appears periodically for no particular reason -- as do both Geraldo and Charlyne Yi in throwaway cameos. Katy Mixon (as Elizabeth) and DJ Qualls (as Howard) attach themselves to Mary's lost cross-country cause, since they appear to have nothing better to do.

(Well, that's not completely fair: Howard carves apples into semblances of celebrity heads. And sells them on the web.)

The best recommendation I can offer up for this movie: Sandra Bullock looks smashing in hookerwear.