Baggage Claim: Movie Review

This week multiplexes are getting two completely different romantic-comedies.  One of which is the sharp, funny, and original “Don Jon”, the other is the idiotic, tired, and unfunny “Baggage Claim”, which is based on the best-selling novel of the same name.  Sure, the general audience I watched the screening with were laughing up a storm during “Baggage Claim”, which just made me feel sad for what the majority of people find funny nowadays.

Generic rom-coms are usually about two people meeting and hating each other until they realize that they are meant for each other, or they are about a woman needing to find a man ASAP and will do whatever crazy things they need to do in order to find one.  “Baggage Claim” picks the latter generic storyline.  Most of these films give the main character a sassy girlfriend or a gay best friend….here we get treated to both. Thankfully Adam Brody winds up being one of the most entertaining elements as the gay best friend.

“Baggage Claim” centers on Montana Moore (Paula Patton), a flight attendant determined not to show up at her younger sister’s wedding without a man of her own.  Montana calls on her friends Gail (Jill Scott) and Sam (Brody) to help her track down all her ex-boyfriends who are traveling for the holiday season so that she can purposely run into them by accident during various flights.  I am not kidding, that is really what this movie is about and boy is it stupid.

Some of the various men from Montana’s past are played by Djmon Hounsou, Taye Diggs, Boris Kodjoe, and Trey Songz, who actually gets one of the film’s best scenes when his character’s true colors are revealed.   Did I mention that Derek Luke plays Montana’s neighbor from across the hall and best friend since high school?   Do you even need to see this movie to know exactly who she is going to wind up with?   Yeah, I didn’t think so.  “Baggage Claim” is a paint-by-numbers movie with a serious lack of paint.  Skip this one for sure:

By: Marc Ferman