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Love and Other Drugs

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Directed by Edward Zwick. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria, Josh Gad, Gabriel Macht, Judy Greer, George Segal, Jill Clayburgh, Kate Jennings Grant, Katheryn Winnick, Kimberly Scott, Peter Friedman, Nikki Deloach, Natalie Gold, Megan Ferguson, Michael Benjamin Washington. Written by Charles Randolph and Edward Zwick & Marshall Herskovitz, from the book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman by Jamie Reidy.

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Set in the mid-1990s, Drugs stars Gyllenhaal as Jamie Randall, a womanizing med school dropout who goes to work as a drug rep for Pfizer; using branded pens and umbrellas, he tries to get doctors to prescribe Zoloft instead of Prozac, and uses his skills to get in good with their secretaries. Jamie isn´t a moral, upstanding guy. He´s downright sleazy as he pretends to be a doctor in training to get a look at patient Maggie Murdock´s tits, and then has the balls to hit on her outside. But when Pfizer introduces Viagra, the new erection drug, Jamie is just the right scumbag to sell it.

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Now, I would have loved a movie about the Viagra salesmen, and very possibly a movie about the Parkinson´s patient, and even maybe a movie about the two of them and the full consequences of their relationship. Love and Other Drugs, while containing elements of all of that, ends up being none of that. As polished, good-looking, well-shot, well-acted, and smoothly put-together by director Zwick as this film is, it is ultimately, inescapably, cookie-cutter rom-com junk food complete with wildly inappropriate happy ending.

The film is based on a play by Robert Glaudini, produced by Hoffman and Ortiz on the stage. No surprises from a theatrical production directed by an actor: this is an actor´s showcase. What did surprise me here was that, despite Hoffman´s Jack being front and center for most of the film, Ortiz dominates the screen and provides the movie its heart and soul. Mostly seen in crime dramas (American Gangster, Public Enemies, Miami Vice), I´ve taken note of Ortiz before but this is this first time I´ve seen him in such a fully fleshed-out, three-dimensional performance; in short, he´s excellent. Hoffman, Ryan, and Vega each turn in finely-tuned work as well.

We learn at the outset that there are, or rather were, Numbers One through Three; they´ve been killed by the Mogadorians, who wiped out Lorien and have come to Earth to finish the job. The Numbers go up to Nine, but because the Mogadorians are killing them in order for some reason, Four is the next on their list. This causes complications at his new high school, where he´s befriended the nerd (Callan McAuliffe), wooed the popular but sensitive girl (Dianna Agron), and become enemies with the jock (Jake Abel). Fortunately, ever-developing powers and hot Aussie Number Six (Teresa Palmer) come to his aid.

I Am Number Four is breezy, lightweight, and, thankfully, doesn´t take itself too seriously – or rather, director Caruso doesn´t (the script is another beast). It would be fun, or at least fun enough, if it weren´t for the blatant pandering to various demographics, which pulls the film in five different directions: of all the varying elements here – sci-fi, fantasy, romance, comic book superhero, high school drama, even Dan Brown conspiracy – none are sufficiently explored. And everything seems lifted from other productions.

Pettyfer, just 21, is already a stone-chiseled action hero with the acting skills to match; he may not have range, but he´s an agreeable presence in the lead. Olyphant – a legitimately good actor who too-frequently appears in less-than-good product – seems to be in another film altogether. The rest of the cast fails to make much of an impression, save for Kevin Durand as the leader of the Mogadorians, who seems to be doing a cross between Vincent D´Onofrio´s alien-infested character in Men in Black and The Silence of the Lambs‘ Buffalo Bill.