User Reviews

The girls are hot and actually interesting, not one of these modern cookie-cutter girls you see all around. Kate Upton with a "I'm not skinny and I don't care (mostly because I have big boobs, but, that is beside the point)" and Alexandra Daddario with those peculiar eyes, also do a decent enough job acting, which is actually a nice surprise for Upton. Story is also mostly OK, nothing special, but, based on real stuff (we've all seen these "girlfights for the guy" amongst our friends) and has the potential to be funny.

Sadly, it's not. Funny. In all honesty, there are a few funny moments and some fun to be had, but, mostly, it's just these hotties doing crazy stuff. It's somewhat interesting and you do stay watching them, but, it's far from enough to make even a half-decent comedy.

Apart from some problems in the script (like near the end, when Daddario "threatens" the principal, refusing to resign as a teacher, yet I don't think anybody has any idea what she threatens him with), the biggest problem seems to be the lack of "chemistry" between the leads, including the male (object of their affections). Look-wise, it's good casting. Otherwise, it's bad. The best chemistry we get from Upton and the "fourth wheel" guy they pick up along the way.

Bottom line: you can watch these hotties in other stuff, so skip this one.

Meg (Kate Upton) and Kate (Alexandra Daddario) are best friends who live together. Meg is really bad at selling beauty products and Kate is a high school teacher who might be forced to resign. When their lives become screwed up, they decide to relax and take a trip to Florida. On their plane ride to the Sunshine State, Meg and Kate encounter a pending hurricane and are diverted to St. Louis, MO. While stuck in St. Louis, they compete hard for a hunky guy (Matt Barr as Ryan) and fracture each other's friendship in the process. That's the central theme of The Layover, my latest review.

By definition, a film director controls a movie's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay while guiding the technical crew and actors in the fulfillment of that vision. William H. Macy, a shining TV actor who kills it on Shameless, is "Layover's" antonym director. As you watch The Layover, you wonder if Macy lost a bet or had pressure from the suits at Vertical Entertainment to put out an assembly line, R-rated comedy product. In jest, "Layover" has almost no cinematic innovation, a loose plot, and virtually zero character development. It runs 88 minutes, is playing in only a handful of theaters, and has been mostly demoted to release by way of the Internet. Granted, these are all bad signs. Believe that.

Now it's hard for me to accept that William H. Macy actually filmed The Layover. Sadly, he did and he makes a lot of mistakes in his second directorial effort. The first is casting Kate Upton in one of the lead roles and then relegating known troupers like Kal Penn and Rob Corddry to two-minute cameos. Listen, I think Upton is pretty to look at and she gets props for having the same birthplace as me (St. Joseph, MI). But let's be real shall we. She's not ready to carry a movie yet and her acting is borderline inept. It's mind-boggling to think that Macy would truly approve of some of her dialogue takes. When Kate's Meg is trying to say something sincere or trying to appear unladylike, it's cringe- worthy as heck.

Another mistake Macy makes is the general way in which he presents The Layover itself. There are plenty of slapstick moments, road trip instances, a ridiculous sex scene straight from the annals of Macy's own Shameless, some bathroom humor, and the usual, sexual innuendo. These elements feel like pawns to simply keep the narrative going. Overall, the brand of funny here feels forced and familiar and that's something William H. Macy never exhibits when brilliantly playing a sleazeball on America's television set.

Finally, Macy makes the big miscalculation of approving a film soundtrack that could take Muzak to a whole new level. With the exception of Human League's 1981 ditty "Do You Want Me", every song in The Layover could easily be featured on a Kidz Bop compilation album. Basically, we're talking about tunes that can make your ears bleed.

In conclusion, William H. Macy's direction is uniformly standard. With minimal sway, Bill almost holds back on the R-rated fare and tries to wrap up "Layover" in the same sort of fashion as Kate Upton's other flick, The Other Woman (small spoiler). Here's the problem: The Other Woman with its notion of girl-minded revenge and guy player mentality, wasn't that great to begin with. Bottom line: The Layover gets a one and a half star rating from me. As a moviegoer, you really need to "delay" yourself from seeing it.

I don't mind that these aren't the most poignant or well-written movies. It's a rom-com; that's not why you watch them. But this was hard to watch at times. It's one thing for them to be constantly competing over a guy, but Kate Upton's character is just awful. She steals her friend's airline miles, locks her in an unsanitary public bathroom, doesn't care when she has a panic attack on a hot air balloon, endangers everyone by blinding the guy flying the balloon, tries to drug her friend, doesn't tell anyone that she accidentally drugged the guy driving the car which led to them getting in a car accident, punches her "friend" in the throat, and probably more I'm forgetting. Alexandra Daddario's character may have competed for the guy, but she always looked out for her friend - warning her about flashing people in a bar, tried to keep her from getting hurt in the pool, and genuinely caring for her friend.

From the get-go, you know Upton's character a terrible person. Daddario seems to get in trouble with her job for asking a kid to read from whatever he's hiding, which happens to be inappropriate. Upton's character gets fired for intentionally trying to deceive companies into buying illegal North Korean cosmetics. At least there's a semi-happy ending when they stop living together so Daddario can get her sh*t together without Upton around.