Baggage Claim

BAGGAGE CLAIM

Director : David E. Talpert

Year : 2013

Genre : Comedy

Rating : *

Adapted from his novel of the same name, 'Baggage Claim' is a dull as ditch-water romantic comedy from director David E. Talbert. Starring Paula Patton, Adam Brody, Djimon Hounsou and Taye Diggs, the movie tells the the story of a desperate woman who tries to find a husband in 30 days so that she can go to her sisters wedding with someone on her arm. Throwing sexual politics completely out of the window and presenting us with the most blatant stereotyping imaginable, 'Baggage Claim' paints a world where all women just want to be married for the sake of being married and men are adulterous cheats who prefer their partners to keep quiet as not to embarrass them. Lacking any sense of charm, likability, emotion or character whatsoever, 'Baggage Claim' needs to be taken straight to the airport incinerator so that it's deadly rays of vomitous mulch can be destroyed forever and no one can be harmed by it's toxic fumes.

'Baggage Claim' tells the story of Montana, a boring woman who is desperate for love. When her younger, boring,more attractive sister becomes engaged, she begins a very long winded, expensive and boring 30 day quest to find all of her boring ex boyfriends in the hope that one of them will propose. With help of airport staff and her boring friends, Montana flies from country to country seeking out her exes in the hopes that one of them will pop the question so that she can have a man on her arm at the boring wedding ceremony.

Giving us no characters to root for or a story to care about, 'Baggage Claim' resorts to taking entire set pieces from other more popular romantic comedies and stitching them together like a hideous Frankenstein's monster. Telling a narrative that is dreary, boring and completely unbelievable, the movie throws ethics and equality out of the window and builds it's characters up from the most basic and tired of stereotypes; we have the kooky central protagonist who says the wrong things but has a good heart, we have the sassy, smart alecky best friend, we have the gay friend, we have the next door neighbour, we have the over domineering mother, every single romantic comedy archetype is here and because of this, 'Baggage Claim' feels incredibly tired and old hat. 

I do not believe that in this day and age, women are completely content to marry purely for the sake of being married and the viewpoints that the film vomits into our faces are both misogynist and extremely retrograde. Reducing women to ogling freaks who believe that marriage is the be and end all and that life isn't truly complete without someone to look after you, 'Baggage Claim' takes away everything that the Suffragettes fought for and reduces it's female characters females to needy, whiny and desperately unlikable caricatures that would be seen to be offensive in any other film.

The acting is atrocious across the board, the direction is laughable and the script is prefunctory at best. Don't waste your time with this garbage, there is so much better stuff to see right now. Just let 'Baggage Claim' float out of the cinemas and right into the DVD bargain bin at your nearest supermarket.