Hollywood Product - My Best Friend's Girl

GENRE: Dirty rom-com

THE PITCH: A "professional asshole" named Tank (comedian Dane Cook) hires out to take women on terrible rebound dates so they'll go back to their ex-boyfriends. But when his roommate, Dusty (American Pie's Jason Biggs), asks him to "tank" his beloved co-worker Alexis (Kate Hudson), Tank falls for her himself.

MONEY SHOTS: A genuinely funny montage counts down 10 obnoxious things Tank does on a date, including peeing in a restaurant cactus. A drunken Alexis inadvertently one-ups Tank's boorish behavior on their date. A religious-themed restaurant offers some sacrilegious sight gags. Tank does a grand-scale reprise of his 10 obnoxious things at a big wedding.

BEST LINE: "'Making love?' Who are you, Nora Ephron?" says Tank's sex-obsessed father (an otherwise wasted Alec Baldwin) when he mocks his son's newfound sensitivity.

WORST LINE: "To get 'em to run, I get them to think I'm shit. To get 'em to come, I get them to think they're shit," Tank explains his philosophy of women early on. The movie works so well at making Tank a douchebag that novice movie star Cook isn't able to sell his change of heart.

FLESH FACTOR: Cook has a buffalo shot at a wedding reception, and several shirtless scenes to show how often he works out. Hudson turns up in a sports bra and underwear surprisingly often. Alexis' roommate (Cloverfield's Lizzie Caplan) has an extensive dildo collection.

SOUNDTRACK PLAYLIST: The Cars' "My Best Friend's Girl" doesn't just have pride of place — its opening chords make a refrain throughout the film. Tank's bad-date theme song is 2 Live Crew's "Pop That Pussy." Linda Ronstadt's "You're No Good" (and, oddly, Johnny Cash's "When the Man Comes Around") highlight Tank's rotten persona. Then the film, ridiculously, tries to use John Hiatt's "Have a Little Faith in Me" to make us feel sorry for him. (Come on, it's Dane Cook!)

POP REFERENCES: Tank privately tears up while watching Ghost. Alexis and Dusty use When Harry Met Sally as an example of male/female friendship. The film's restaurant-based final scene may pay homage to Harry's "I'll have what she's having" scene.

THE BOTTOM LINE: My Best Friend's Girl features some nastily amusing jokes about men behaving badly, but doesn't care enough about the characters to otherwise hold our interest. Alexis and Dusty have such debilitating, unexamined esteem issues that it doesn't really matter who ends up with whom. My Best Friend's Girl attempts to equal the raunchy content of a Judd Apatow comedy — it probably uses the word asshole more than any other film ever made — only without the sensitivity to make us care. You might want to rent The 40-Year-Old Virgin on the rebound.