2000, PG-13, 96 minutes

One of the most common criticisms about many, many movies is that they often lack realism. Strangely, the problem with Bounce is the exact opposite: it's far too realistic for its own good. Supposedly the attraction for this film is that it offers a glimpse of one-time real life couple Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow, but unfortunately it offers very little else.

Buddy Amaral (Ben Affleck) is a born salesman, or so he thinks. After closing a huge ad campaign for his company, he gets caught up at the airport due to some bad weather. He meets a few people at a bar, and to make a long story short, he ends up giving away his ticket to one of them so he can jump in the sack with a beautiful woman named Mimi (Natasha Henstridge). Then, the plane he was supposed to be on crashes, and another man is dead in his place. After enduring his own personal disaster, he decides to track down Abby Janello (Gwyneth Paltrow), the wife of the man whom he gave the ticket. As you could easily guess, they end up falling in love and just as we've seen in a million other movies, he has something big that he needs to tell her.

The biggest problem with this movie is that it gives us nothing to talk about. You see it, sit through it, enjoy parts of it, and then leave as the exact same person you were when you went to see it. Bounce is an empty film, ironically because of its excessive realism. I bought everything I saw on screen; every moment was true to life and honest and easy to believe. But so what? Movies are supposed to entertain us or show us something that we may have missed had we not seen it. Bounce leaves you with nothing. It's not original (although the whole "man died in my place" idea is actually kind of interesting) and it never really tries to surprise the audience, almost as if it were a documentary and not a work of fiction.

As for the acting, Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow both give good performances, but the movie as a whole is pretty lackluster and sometimes it seems to rub off on them. Affleck is believable as the guy who thinks he knows it all but finally realizes he doesn't, and Paltrow's portrayal as a motherly-type is good enough that it's only distracting for the first couple of minutes. The supporting cast is good but nothing special and generally the cast seems to be bogged down by the story's slow pace and lack of conflict.

The best stories are drenched in conflict and tension and emotion, while Bounce only has one of these. Sure, the characters are going through some tough emotional times in their lives, and as sad as that is: why am I supposed to care? Don't get me wrong, this definitely isn't a terrible film, but in the end it's just something you'll forget about twenty minutes after you see it.