The Wedding Date is a weak, marriage of romance and comedy that's part My Best Friend's Wedding and Four Weddings and a Funeral - with a pinch of Pretty Woman added in an obvious attempt to make the film go down smoothly. I've always felt that Pretty Woman was way overrated, but it's a masterpiece compared to this bore-fest, and as for the other two films mentioned above, they're infinitely stronger, smarter and more witty.

In The Wedding Date, Will and Grace star Debra Messing plays Kat Elllis, an unlucky-in-love woman who's in for a nightmare of a weekend as she has no choice but to attend her annoying sister's wedding in London. The catch is, the best man at the wedding happens to be Kat's ex. Suffice it to say that some uncomfortable confrontations will be unavoidable. In an attempt to make the whole affair run more smoothly, Kat contracts with a professional escort (a male hooker - played by Dermot Mulroney) to pose as her loving, new boyfriend. This ploy is designed primarily to get her ex's goat, but the plan backfires when, not surprisingly, she ends up developing feelings for her rent-a-stud.

Can you say sitcom? No, no, no, wait - can you say shitcom? That's exactly what The Wedding Date is. Don't get me wrong. Debra Messing is cute, but she is utterly unable to carry this dull, and surprisingly distasteful mess on her back. There just aren't any smarts written into this story whatsoever, none of those unexpected moments of charm that made My Best Friend's Wedding such an unexpected treat. Not that a film of this nature needs to be an intellectual challenge in order to work, but when a picture offers nothing but people running around doing ridiculously stupid things, it helps matters if there are a few laughs along the way. I laughed a total of three times during The Wedding Date. Then again the row of couples sitting just behind me were laughing-it-up from soup to nuts. I must have missed something.

Again, Messing is likable but Mulroney is literally missing-in-action as the new man of her affection. He can be a terrific actor, (see, My Best Friend's Wedding) but here, he is given virtually nothing interesting to say or do, and is unable to inject any life into this role whatsoever. Obviously much of the blame here, falls squarely on the shoulders of the writers. Most of the secondary characters are more annoying than likable, and that just doesn't cut it in the world of the romantic-comedy. This isn't Closer (a serious look at love and dysfunction) for hell sakes. This is supposed to be light, fluffy fun and it just fails miserably. To top it all off, The Wedding Date appears to be masquerading as a British comedy. It's almost as though the writers figured that if characters speak with a British accent, that this automatically makes things funny.

I didn't mind that I knew exactly where this movie was headed from frame one. That's to be expected in a film with such an obvious premise. I did expect to be entertained however, and that's where the Wedding Date really fails. It doesn't entertain. Unless you find a woman engaging in alcohol inspired sex, a belligerent mother constantly spouting humorless insults at her fully grown daughters, and people lying to each other, entertaining. The Wedding Date isn't necessarily about these scenes, but they're the ones that stick out, and these various elements might work in another movie, but they don't belong in a romantic comedy which is certainly how this film is being marketed.

I've got a screening of Hitch later on and given that it's Valentine's Day, I sure hope I feel the love and can give it a more warm reception, because The Wedding Date is a heartbreaker, and not in a good way.