Heavy Petting (2007) Movie Review, Trailer and Poster

USA 2007
Director: Marcel Sarmiento
Cast: Malin Åkerman, Brendan Hines, Kevin Sussman, Steve Rosen, Sam Coppola
Rating: R
Release Date: 15 July 2008
Running Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

The Movie Review

It's highly common when a guy approaches a single mom with a daughter, there's an unwritten rule that the guy must also win the heart of the daughter and not only the Mom's alone. But what if a guy wants to date a girl who is head-over-heels about dog? A simple premise of Heavy Petting. A Simple and not a new one, at least in the recent years the audience would compare Heavy Petting with another movie with similar theme in 2005 entitled Must Love Dogs.

Charlie (Brendan Hines) and Ras (Kevin Sussman) are best buddies and also pathetic single men which girls seem to avoid them. Both of them share similar disinterest too, they hate dogs. On a party however Charlie's luck is changing after he bumps on an attractive girl named Daphne (malin Åkerman). The only problem is that Daphne is so into dogs, the she even


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cremates her late dog and put it in an urn at her house. Later Daphne owns a new dog, a dog that Charlie thinks as one annoying barking creature. But of course he must find a way to adapt to this situation if he ever wants to be loved back by Daphne.

That's pretty much the whole storyline. What about Ras you ask? Well as a side-kick he only serves to provide supposed-to-be-funny quips and giving crazy advice to Charlie. Period.

Malin Åkerman, who actually has been gracing the screen since the age of five, is anything but a talented actress. Most of you would probably know her from The Heartbreak Kid performing together with Ben Stiller. Even so, Malin and Brendan would meet difficulty in competing against the charm of Diane Lane and John Cusack who headlined Must Love Dogs. I'm not comparing them without no reason, it's just that the theme of loving-her-dog-first-before-she-loves is a unique one, a uniqueness that could either be amusing or simply boring.

The filmmakers probably thought by putting as many dog scenes as possible would come up with something funny? I do think the director should have put more thinking. Besides there is zilch chemistry between malin and Brendan. After all said and done finally...yup finally come the obligatory fight between Malin and Brendan just to continue the screen to reach the finale. And again of course, everything involves dog.

So, the jokes aren't funny, there is no chemistry, a weird theme and incredibly uninteresting music, plus dogs all the time just like 101 Dalmatian? What that makes? Yeah who let this dog film out anyway.

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