The first thing you should know about "Serving Sara" is that it's everything you expect it to be. Predictability, in this case, isn't all that good.
Matthew Perry plays Joe, a struggling process server who has been having a lot of trouble recently getting subpoenas served on time. Sara (Elizabeth Hurley) is Sara Moore, the English wife of a rich Texas rancher. Well, make that his wife for the time being.
When Tony (Vincent Pastore), a rival process server from Joe's firm, gets the job of serving Sara with divorce papers, the plum job Joe had but messed up, Joe steps in to make sure things don't go quite as planned. Soon, Joe and Sara are off on a race halfway across the country to serve Sara's husband with divorce papers before Tony gets to her.
Besides the original idea for a plot, the rest is pretty much true to formula. Sara is out for her share of the divorce spoils (that's why she needs to serve her husband with divorce papers before he serves her), and Joe is out for a cut of the money for doing his job. Everyone's got dollar signs in their eyes, and hijinks pave the way to the bank. Not surprisingly, as the two get close to serving the papers, they start to fall for each other, a move foreseen since the plot was set in motion.
{INSERT_RELATED}Matthew Perry is typical Matthew Perry. He is charming, a little arrogant (but not so much as to be unlikable), and, of course, sarcastic. Hurley also doesn't broaden her acting range here. She is sexy and she is English, but she is not much else. Cedric The Entertainer ("The Original Kings of Comedy") steals a couple of scenes as Joe's boss, and Bruce Campbell ("Evil Dead," "Army of Darkness") is over-the-top as Sara's soon-to-be-ex-husband and Texas millionaire rancher.
All in all, "Serving Sara" is less satisfying than an average romantic comedy. Yes, you get Matthew Perry's biting one-liners. Yes, you get to see Elizabeth Hurley's underwear. But all of that isn't worth sitting through a telegraphed plot, mostly one-dimensional stereotyped characters, and Farrelly Brothers knock-off gross-outs. "Serving Sara" leaves you feeling cheapened by the Hollywood formula.
"Serving Sara" is now showing at theaters everywhere.
