Chancers in Vegas

Cameron Diaz’s latest movie What Happens In Vegas is all about gambling with your life but will the rom-com be a box-office gamble as well?

Georgia Lewis reports.

May 2008

What Happens In Vegas is Cameron Diaz’s latest silver screen foray. This time the sassy blonde plays the feisty Joy who accidentally marries Jack, played by Ashton Kutcher, after a night of debauchery in Las Vegas. One of the two wins a $3 million jackpot by playing the other’s quarter on the slot machine – this stunt doesn’t exactly get the marriage off to a happy start. The furious newlyweds try to undermine each other and claim the cash but, as this is a romantic comedy, there are no prizes for guessing what might happen along the way.

The movie is written by Dana Fox, whose last effort The Wedding Date, starring Debra Messing, and Dermot Mulroney didn’t exactly set the box office on fire. But with the far more bankable combined star power of Diaz and Kutcher, What Happens In Vegas may be the film the revives Fox’s career as a Hollywood screenwriter.

But a strong pointing the movie’s favour is director Tom Vaughan. He did an excellent job with the gently funny Starter For 10, where James McAvoy plays a sweet, nerdy guy who is obsessed with winning University Challenge. The support cast also includes stars who have a reputation for breathing life into even the dodgiest of scripts, namely Queen Latifah and Dennis Farina.

There’s definitely a touch of life imitating art in What Happens In Vegas. Off-screen, Kutcher is best known as being the toyboy husband of Demi Moore and Diaz has been known to dabble with younger men, most famously during a four-year relationship with Justin Timberlake. This could create the right chemistry needed for this film to be a success, especially as both Kutcher and Diaz are right at home when they do comedy.

Kutcher was perfectly cast as the adorable, dopey dude in That ‘70s Show and again as an adorable, dopey dude in Dude, Where’s My Car. Diaz, meanwhile, still makes people laugh when they watch and re-watch such flicks as There’s Something About Mary and My Best Friend’s Wedding. In these movies, she’s eminently watchable and definitely more appealing than when she goes dowdy for more serious films, such as Being John Malkovich. This is a woman who first got famous when she was cast, along with her impressive legs in The Mask in 1994, despite having no previous acting experience.

After doing a stellar job in The Mask, holding her own opposite the rubber-faced Jim Carrey, Diaz’s career went from strength to strength. There haven’t been too many embarrassing flops in her career, which includes two Charlie’s Angels movies, doing the voice of Princess Fiona for the Shrek movies, bloodstained costume drama Gangs Of New York, the surreal Tom Cruise vehicle Vanilla Sky and football flick Any Given Sunday.

What Happens In Vegas does not have the serious film critics breathlessly anticipating a dramatic triumph of film-making but it will, most likely, have strong commercial appeal thanks to the likable leads and the kind of storyline that’s perfect for a lazy summer afternoon in an air-conditioned cinema.