Show don't tell: so much babble, so little point

Rating: Null/10 (7 December 2004)

First of all, Clive Owen is a total babe, even in this infinitely mediocre movie, where he plays an infinitely mediocre perv. The actors were lost, the script was trite, the tension was forced, but there were moments when you said to yourself:"OK, this movie could almost sort of kind of maybe at some point turn into something kind of OK." Unfortunately, this never happened...the dream was dead before it was born.
If this movie had any point at all, it was this: Natalie Portman is hot. While this is incredibly enlightening, it doesn't really carry the movie. She plays a sassy American stripper, and couldn't possibly be more uncomfortable doing it. There is a scene where she struts around in a thong, but that just makes you feel like her god-parent, wanting nothing more than for her to cover up.
Jude Law and Julia Roberts...they're famous...they are very famous...and rich...and we all know them...because they're famous...but that's just not enough. Roberts expelled her character in a constapational fit...she tried hard...darn hard...and there were moments when she actually made it, but for the most part she was just a famous woman in terrible pants, saying some lines and crying a bunch.
When an actor can't even make you believe that he legitimately wears glasses, what does that say? I think it shows that some roles are just too big for Jude Law.
Clive Owen was fantastic, but that was only because he was in the play "Closer" a few years back. He knew what his character was all about, and he had some inkling of a clue as to what the point of all that babble was. The audience and the rest of the actors are not privy to that information.
What is the point of this movie? Why should we care about these people? What makes them interesting? What makes them do the things they do? This movie begins to answer these questions, and then falls short...way short. I don't know if I'm just a hopeless romantic, but was anyone else upset that no one died at the end? Not only this, but there were zero sex scenes...none...none at all...goose egg...not cool, not cool at all.