French Kiss / She's the One

French Kiss: Meg Ryan emerges bloodied but unbowed from this botched comedy by Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill). Ryan plays a woman whose fiancé (Timothy Hutton) leaves her for a Parisian beauty. She jets over to the City of Lights to fight for her man, but an incapacitating fear of flying forces her to seek help from a fellow passenger, a French thief played by Kevin Kline, who then tutors her in the ways of getting her beau back. Kasdan seems incapable of pacing the story, let alone getting a firm grip on its comic tone and intentions. The production sputters and regroups and stalls repeatedly, forcing Ryan, particularly, to find the boundaries of her own screwball performance. --Tom Keogh

She's the One: Following the success of his spunky, 1995 directorial debut, The Brothers McMullen, Edward Burns suffers a little sophomore slump with this comedy about a pair of rivalrous brothers who get into bizarre relationships with women in a fierce but immature pursuit of happiness. When they find they both have a complicated interest in the same woman (Cameron Diaz), things come to a head. The film is a little overwritten, undershot, bulky, slow, and static, but it is also funny and inventive--further proof that Burns knows his New York City beat as well as Woody Allen does. With Jennifer Aniston, Maxine Bahns, and John Mahoney. --Tom Keogh