You know you're at the movies when the on-screen newsroom is full of vivacious, handsomely paid people busily moving to and fro. Also, when the supposedly ace reporter shows up for work every day in the highest heels and tightest miniskirt ever sold at Barneys, not to mention swinging her gorgeously streaked, immaculately blow-dried hair. What is this place? Ah, it's the workplace of Jennifer Aniston. And as such, there's no room for argument. We may as well settle more comfortably in our seats and stuff our faces with extra fistfuls of popcorn.
Aniston's latest is called "The Bounty Hunter" and the plot is really beside the point. What matters is that she's there, and she's working and she continues to plug away at her job of being Lovely Jen, the Pretty Friend, come hell, high water or Gulf oil spill. The movie pairs her and then-real-life boyfriend Gerard Butler: Hollywood's go-to guy for an obnoxious heterosexual hormonal rampage in the guise of a Homo sapien — but the chemistry that should be there just isn't. According to the tabloids, Aniston and Butler were hot and sizzling at this point, mired in that stage of a relationship when a couple can't keep their hands off each other. In the film, what we see is a man and a woman going through the motions. ad sigh. But isn't that just like Jen, increasingly known as "Lonely Jen"? Despite being one of the world's most desirable women, she's always losing out on the dating scene, on the screen and off. (Exhibits A & B: "Breaking Up," "He's Just Not That Into You.")
However, Aniston is nothing if not game, perhaps the gamest actress in Hollywood since Goldie Hawn. Here, she plays New York journalist Nicole Hurley, with Butler as her ex-husband Milo, whose drinking and gambling got him kicked off the police force. Now he's a bounty hunter and his latest assignment is to bring in his former wife, who jumped bail for a traffic offense and is running around town hot on the trail of a murder coverup. One thing leads to another and they both wind up getting chased by the bad guys, bickering but gradually warming to the idea of starting over. So far, so Aniston.