Rumor Has It

The Rob Reiner-directed Rumor Has It, starring Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner, and Shirley MacLaine debuted Sunday and found few friends among critics. A.O. Scott in the New York Times called it a misbegotten project ... at least six wrong movies in one. Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News described it as a lump of coal, sculpted from the kind of high-concept idea screenwriters find scribbled on bar napkins after nights of heavy drinking. John Anderson in Newsday, referring to the fact that writer-director Ted Griffin was pulled off the project and replaced by Rob Reiner, remarked: Why would Rob Reiner, who's not even the poorest man's Noel Coward, think he had the sophisticated comedic chops to pull something like this off? It's like watching someone in oven mitts trying to crack a safe. He's not getting in. And we feel like we're never getting out. Referring to Reiner's rumored political ambitions, Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe commented that the movie reveals that Reiner is out of touch, which is distressing news for his imagined electorate. How could anyone expect him to reform government when for a decade he's been serving up the same-old same-old at the movies? But Roger Ebert gave him a reluctant vote for this one, writing: This is not a great movie, but it's very watchable and has some good laughs. And fellow Chicagoan Allison Benedikt wrote in the Tribune that the movie is surprisingly likable and fun.

This film was just ok.