Review: Lazy romantic comedy 'The Right One' stuck in wrong direction

Courtesy of Lionsgate

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Stuck in all the wrong directions, Ken Mok’s melodramatic mush “The Right One” never finds the “right” anything. A low stake, slightly interesting premise shows no spark among its main cast who clearly looked like they had nothing to do but cash their paychecks.

Cleopatra Coleman has a bubbly presence throughout “The Right One” and with a better script, it’s easy to see a film getting built around her infectious personality, but alas “The Right One” ain’t it. Coleman plays Sarah, a New York based writer struggling with ideas for her new book. She’s got her literary agent/best friend Kelly (IIiza Shlesinger) breathing down her neck as the impending deadline looms.

Sarah is on autopilot after a rough break-up, and is eager to find inspiration that’ll get her creative juices flowing. Enter the elusive and mysterious Nick Thune playing a stranger Sarah constantly runs into. First he’s a snobby art critic at a gallery opening she attends. Later a painter in the park, and eventually a cross dressing singer from Texas. Who is this man and why does he act in this manner? Sarah’s book is starting to write itself.

Known by a variety of nicknames and pseudonyms, though most hilariously “G-money” at his phone sales office - where he impresses the new boss (David Koechner who has exactly two minutes of screentime) - Sarah is hooked by whatever this dude is selling and it all crescendos to a climatic singing of Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Achy Breaky Heart.”

I almost leapt out the window.

There’s a reality where “The Right One” manages to have fun with its scattershot and improvisational premise, but Thune doesn’t have the weight to carry all these wacky characters and once Mok’s thin screenplay attempts to explain the reasoning behind “G-Money’s” motives (if you make it that far) any redeeming traction is stalled at the gates. Performers deserve credit for finding sentimental moments within a script that’s gasping for air, but this shockling tame R rated comedy never lands on the “right” foot.

Grade: D

THE RIGHT ONE debuts on-demand, digital and select theaters February 5th and hits Blu-Ray and DVD February 9th.