Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004): D+

Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! regurgitates the hackneyed ‘50s romantic comedy formula in which a pretty, naive waif (Kate Bosworth’s country bumpkin Rosalee) meets and wins her dream guy (Josh Duhamel’s movie star Tad Hamilton), only to realize that her one true love has been right beside her all along (Topher Grace’s nerdy Piggly Wiggly manager Pete). And in the process of mechanically adhering to genre conventions, Robert Luketic’s drearily unfunny film fails to produce one single convincingly realistic moment. Grace, left with the thankless role of pining over Bosworth like an insecure loser while cracking wiseass sarcastic comments like his That ‘70s Show alter ego Eric Foreman, makes a wimpy leading man, while Bosworth smiles like a cheery idiot as the moronically oblivious Rosalee. That former soap star Duhamel never comes close to approximating superstar charm is little surprise given the film’s overwhelming ineptitude, nor is there little shock in seeing Nathan Lane and Sean Hayes – two gay comedians shoehorned into sorta-straight roles – wasted as Hamilton’s bitchy, money-grubbing handlers. But the shallow “California materialism vs. down-home West Virginia coziness” peddled by Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! is so painfully clichéd and unsophisticated – West Coasters love booze and babes, Virginian hillbillies love debating the merits of different Pringles flavors – that after a while, I began yearning for the ditzy charm of Luketic’s middling Legally Blonde.