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HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS Julia Roberts had her Pretty Woman, Sandra Bullock had her While You Were Sleeping, and, if it becomes a box office hit, Kate Hudson will have her How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days to turn her into America's latest A-list sweetheart. Yes, she received an Oscar nomination for Almost Famous, but there's always been something a little unformed about Hudson, who has failed to locate the same sort of sparkle that propelled mom Goldie Hawn to stardom back in the late 60s. But this one marks the first time that Hudson has been able to command the screen: She's utterly winning as a women's magazine columnist who, for the sake of a story on what females shouldn't do when dating, hooks up with a guy with the intent of driving him away within... well, check the film's title. She settles on a slick ad man (Matthew McConaughey, easier to take than usual), unaware that he's made a bet that he can get any woman to fall in love with him within the same time period. For a film that wallows in the usual male-female stereotypes, this one's surprisingly light on its feet, thanks in no small part to its well-matched leads. Alas, the third act follows the exact pattern as almost every other romantic comedy made today (most recently Two Weeks Notice and Maid In Manhattan): The deceptions become unearthed, the pair breaks up, some soul searching takes place, and bliss arrives after a madcap chase. Leave before this excruciating finale and you should have an OK time. 
1/2
THE QUIET AMERICAN With apologies to Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis, it's fellow Oscar nominee Michael Caine who deserves the Best Actor trophy for delivering not only the finest male performance of 2002 but also one of the best of his entire career. In this adaptation of a Graham Greene novel whose ideas seem perpetually topical, Caine stars as Thomas Fowler, a London Times journalist stationed in Saigon in the 1950s. His strong relationship with a gorgeous Vietnamese woman (Do Thi Hai Yen) encounters some unexpected turbulence with the arrival of Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser), an idealistic American who makes no bones about the fact that he's fallen in love with Fowler's woman. Director Phillip Noyce has crafted a smart piece of entertainment that works equally well on both the personal and political fronts, placing a complex love triangle at the center of a sobering dissertation that boldly questions the US's continuous policy of meddling in foreign affairs. Fraser provides his character with a superficial sheen that pays off as the movie progresses, yet it's Caine's towering work, as a man who might not be as cynical as he thinks, that gives this movie its booming voice.
THE RECRUIT As far as Next Big Things go, Colin Farrell isn't someone I would bet against. This Irish actor is reasonably talented, impossibly handsome and clearly photogenic -- about as close to a winning hand as can be achieved by someone hoping to become a bona fide movie star. Therefore, one of the pleasures of The Recruit is watching this young upstart hold his own against Al Pacino, an actor who became a superstar so fast that he didn't have time to marinate as a Next Big Thing. The recurring thrust of the film is "Nothing Is What It Seems" -- we're in the land of double-crosses, triple-crosses, plot twists and instantaneous reversals of fortune, and equally as obvious, the film has its work cut out for it, since most modern puzzlers are about as complicated to navigate as a fifth grader's multiplication quiz. At first, this looks like it might be one of the elite -- a thriller that keeps us guessing right to the end. The first half, which finds young hotshot James Clayton (Farrell) and fellow recruit Layla (Bridget Moynahan) training to become CIA agents under the tutelage of agency player Walter Burke (Pacino), smacks of David Mamet at his trickiest. But once the couple are set loose in the world and begin to suspect each other of being an enemy agent, the fun dissipates: Having acclimated ourselves to the movie's internal logic, it becomes clear where this is heading, and the lack of surprises provides plenty of time to dwell on the plotholes. 1/2
