MEET BILL: DVD

SYNOPSIS:
Fed up with his job, his wife and his whole life, bank HR executive Bill (Aaron Eckhart) finds himself the reluctant mentor of an unruly, but curiously wise, teenager (Logan Lerman). Bill's life hits an all time low when he secretly records his wife (Elizabeth Banks) having an affair with a local news anchor, Chip Johnson (Timothy Olyphant) - while she is saying disparaging things about his sexual prowess. Needless to say the footage gets online. With nothing left to lose, he turns to the kid for inspiration and regains his lost sense of self.

Review by Andrew L. Urban:
Discovering your real self is the theme of Meet Bill - in which Bill has to work hard to finally meet himself. Despite a weak screenplay with too little tension for drama and too little humour for comedy, Aaron Eckhart makes what he can of Bill, although it has to be said it's not his best role, even if you're a fan, which I am. There is far too much hokum in the first 95% of the film, with scenes that play fake.

Bill is working for his father in law at the bank, in a job created for him - and neither he nor the bank like each other; his wife is cheating on him; his self worth is close to zero. This would be dramatically gripping if we believed it all, but it's played superficially and not even for a decent laugh.

But Elizabeth Banks as his unfaithful wife, Jessica Alba as a new friend and Logan Lerman as the teenager he mentors but who ends up mentoring Bill in return, all deliver and make this slight vehicle work. Timothy Oliphant is fine in a small and thankless support role as a self-obsessed news anchor.

The clichés and contrivances are piled on top of each other, and it's only a sense of deranged fun that sneaks into the tone that makes it watchable.

Published January 29, 2009