Fools Rush In (1997)

reviewed by
Ben Hoffman


                               FOOLS RUSH IN
                       A film review by Ben Hoffman
                        Copyright 1997 Ben Hoffman

This could have been just another lightweight bit of romantic fluff. Instead, the story has much more going for it than most films of that genre and, aided by some fine acting, turns this into a very entertaining romantic comedy.

Alex (Matthew Perry) is a nice-looking young executive type. He meets up with Isabel (Salma Hayek) a stunningly beautiful yet wholesome-looking Hispanic woman from Mexico and, after a one night stand, Alex awakes to find Isabel has left him without a word or forwarding address. That is where their relationship would have ended except that three months later, Isabel shows up at Alex's place to inform him that he is the father of the baby she has been carrying.

Isabel is a great believer in Fate. Alex is a believer in "doing the right thing." Based on these two beliefs, despite their backgrounds being very far apart (Alex is a WASP and Isabel is a Catholic of Mexican heritage), there is no question but that they must get married. There are the de rigueur meetings of each other's parents and family. The WASPs are unhappy (John Bennett Perry . . . Matthew's real-life father and Jill Clayburgh as the mother). On the Hispanic side, there is Isabel's very protective father (Tomas Milian) who still is angry that the U.S. confiscated Mexican territory, and the mother (Anne Betancourt) AND Isabel's five brothers who are suspicious of Alex's intentions. Also there is the unhappy policeman Chuy (Carlos Gomez) who was once Isabel's fiance.

As in all romantic comedies, there is the boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back for the inevitable happy ending. Here it is done with humor and charm and leaves you with a nice feeling, wishing the adorable screen's couple will live happily ever after.

Deftly directed by Andy Tennant.
2.5 Bytes
4 Bytes = Superb
3 Bytes = Too good to miss
2 Bytes = Average
1 Byte  = Save your money
Ben Hoffman

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews