It does, of course, make perfect economic sense to place Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston centre stage. If you listen closely, you can still hear the sound of cash-grabbing Hollywood fat cats lining their pockets with undeserved riches.

After all, who wouldn’t want to watch Mr Abs and Mrs Haircut ham it up in an outrageous action comedy? Well, not me. Had I been juggling handgrenades at the time of viewing, my person would now be a piece of modern art splattered all over the living room wall.

The Bounty Hunter: Pull the Pin

So what’s The Bounty Hunter all about? The plot, if you can call it that, may well have been written on the back of a cigarette pack. Gerard Butler plays Milo Boyd, a bounty hunter who stumbles on his dream job – the chance to track down his bail-hopping ex-wife, Nicole Hurly (Jennifer Aniston).

While the movie rides the coattails of comedic gems such as Midnight Run, the complete absence of laughs mean The Bounty Hunter is about as funny as a hammer to the head. Actually, a hammer to the head would be funnier.

Gerard Butler: The Ugly Truth

Gerard Butler struts his stuff in The Bounty Hunter with the grace of an elephant on a trampoline. His performance here may be light-years ahead of that in The Ugly Truth, but this guy gets deeper under my skin than a Chilean coal miner.

Butler exudes the charisma of a fossil, his delivery imbued with the lifelessness of a goldfish on a bus. Curiosity, however, recently got the better of me when I joined a Butler fan forum in search of enlightenment as to his appeal.

You know that moment when you walk into a village pub: the music stops, silence ensues, punters’ heads rotate Exorcist-style towards your person? Sure you do. Well that’s the icy response this wandering stranger encountered from fans of ‘Gerry’. I wasn’t welcome. So it was that I fought with the bravery of a Catholic priest to exorcise the truth from those who pray to the Shrine of Butler.

The general consensus seems to be this: Gerry has the ‘x-factor’, ‘he’s butch’, ‘sexy’ and, wait for it: ‘there’s just something about him that you can’t put your finger on’.

Well let me try. Butler has the touch of a black hole: he sucks the life out of every movie he’s in. Like taxes, the common cold and Simon Cowell, he just refuses to go away.

And why do producers keep insisting Gerry drops his Scottish accent in favour of an America twang? I’m yet to see a film in which he doesn’t sound like Dolly Parton stuck in a microwave.

Despite all my misgivings, I have a sneaking suspicion Butler may pull a decent performance from the hat at some point, but for now, he needs to fire his agent and commit to a script outside his comfort zone.

I’d like to see him play a cross-dressing, zoo keeper, who stops at nothing to save the world from a shortage of cornflakes. Instant classic!

The Bounty Hunter: 150 Minutes Later

As a romantic comedy, The Bounty Hunter has all the sizzle of a vegetarian sausage – it looks promising, but lacks substance.

It’s a pointless movie that would have been better left on the shelf along with an out-of-date jar of pickles and Eddie Murphy’s acting career.

Rating: 0.5 out of 5 stars

This realisation hit me harder than a freight train the other night when I watched The Ugly Truth. I’ll tell you right from the get go, it’s one of the worst movies I’ve seen this side of the English Civil War.

The film is offensive to men, women and small children alike – in fact, anybody with a pulse. Straight after the movie ended, some random fellow from the North Pole dropped me a line. “Hey there”, he said, “have you seen that movie The Ugly Truth? It’s bloody awful”. The phone line went dead.

And, let me tell you, if there is life out there, right now they are planning a full frontal attack on Earth after being infuriated by this idiotic film. It’s a depressing thought. On the plus side, though, at least that would mean no more Gerard Butler movies.

The Ugly Truth: arrrrggggggggggg!

The Ugly Truth orbits the Planet of Romantic Film Predictability more shamelessly than a junk food addict in a sweet shop.

It’s not the movie’s reliance on convention which ruffled my feathers, rather the chauvinistic, anti-feminist vibe reverberating throughout.

Horribly devious characters populate a film which fails miserably in its attempts to pass itself off as a rom-com. The Ugly Truth is like feeding a pig bacon: it’s just wrong!

The Story of The Ugly Truth

If you are going to make a movie about vacuous people, who better to cast in the leading role than Gerard Butler? It’s a stroke of genius really. He’s clearly not the sharpest barb on the wire, so thumbs up to the casting director.

Katherine, Knocked Up, Heigl, also takes centre stage, playing a TV show producer coached in the art of romance by her chauvinistic correspondent, Butler.

Heigl’s character has everything she could want in life – success, fame, money and good looks to boot. The only thing she’s missing is a man. Cue the rugged, foul-mouthed, woman-hating Butler.

The Ugly Truth: Get Me The Shotgun Ma

The Ugly Truth is so bad that I just can’t be bothered to talk about it anymore. All I would say is this: I have little doubt that the DVD is radioactive.

Given that I’m a 21^st century guy, safety always come first. As such, I’ve devised a plan. Firstly, rent a small fishing vessel and sail into the middle of the ocean. Secondly, place the disc into a casket, nailing the lid shut so it may never see the light of day again. Finally, throw the casket overboard, watching with glee as it descends to the bottom of the ocean.

Like Freddy Krueger, Jason and any other force of filmic evil, though, I suspect Butler will be back when I least expect it.

The ugly truth about the The Ugly Truth goes something like this: arrrggggggggg!

Rating: 0.5 out of 5 stars

Could this be the antidote to my woes I ask?

Detaching myself from the couch I wobble over and lay claim to the new arrival. What could it be?

Like Charlie Bucket discovering the golden ticket, I peel back the envelope with nervous angst. Pulling the disc partially from its jacket the title comes into view – it reads, Gamer.

Ok I say, it’s not going to be Citizen Kane, but maybe some mindless fun is just what the doctor ordered.

Let me tell you, I’ll never self medicate again!

Bad Medicine…

300’s Gerard Butler stars as Kable in a near-future dystopia controlled by online gamers. Kable racks up an endless body count as he crusades through online environments in a bid to regain his independence.

Sound familiar?

It should do! Directing duo Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor brazenly draw from a raft of films including The Matrix, Rollerball, The Running Man, The Condemned, Battle Royale and more recently, Paul Anderson’s 2008 Death Race.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind…

Let me make a quick admission: I rather enjoyed the adrenaline-fuelled Crank. Here Neveldine and Taylor successfully delivered a tongue-in-cheek parody of the modern-day action flick which at times displayed genuine visual invention.

So what happened with Lamer…I mean Gamer?

I’ll tell you what….

Neveldine and Brian pummel the viewer into submission with a barrage of stylistic devices that induce bewilderment rather than excitement.

Non-stop shaky cam, frenetic cuts, and bizarre interludes undermine any dramatic tension between the characters and subsequently you never feel the invulnerable Kable is in any real danger.

What results is action scene after action scene that play out like Transformers with blood – its almost impossible to tell what’s going on.

It’s long been an irritation to me how filmmakers continue to misappropriate the handheld camera. Surely this cinematographic technique of dispensing with stable images marks a calculated attempt to convey realism – think of Saving Private Ryan, the Bourne films and United 93.

So why the dastardly duo embrace handheld like a bull in a china shop is beyond me.

It doesn’t matter how much you shake that cam boys, you’re not going to paper over the thin plot and ineffective characters

High Concept…?

As is often the case with high-concept films, Gamer’s basic premise wears thin around five seconds in. Displaying the grace of an elephant at a mouse zoo, the film tramples all over the basic ingredients of successful action films. Where’s the emotion, snappy one-liners, explosive/fun action, characters you care about and want to succeed?

Its not rocket science, its simple mathematics!

As a result Gamer resides light-years away from high-concept classics such as Alien, Jaws, and Predator, instead plummeting into the pit of despair with Snakes on a Plane and Godzilla for companions.

Big, brash, and nonsensical at times, the only thing Gamer will cure is insomnia; so proceed with caution, especially if you’re driving.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars – available on Blu-ray and DVD