Quite simply, The Bounty Hunter sucks. Everyone knows why I make myself watch this crap, but it doesn’t make it any easier.
Like most failed chick flicks, The Bounty Hunter is trying to juggle way more than it’s capable of. Amidst the central relationship between Nicole and Milo, there are peripheral goings-on that really doom the movie right from the start. Nicole (Jennifer Aniston) is a reporter investigating a suspicious murder within the New York City Police Department. She herself was recently arrested, but we don’t find out exactly why until the last fifteen minutes of the movie. The “big reveal” isn’t worth it at all. It’s just like the rest of the movie. Lame, lame, lame.
Milo (Gerard Butler) is a former detective who was fired from the department and turned to bounty hunting. So he has a stake in uncovering that one of his best friends and ex-partner is innocent. He’s given the opportunity to track down his ex-wife and bring her in for a $5,000 reward, and jumps at the chance. A flimsy plot, yes, but it could have possibly worked on at least a mediocre level. But it never does. This is almost entirely because every single character (except for one) is severely unlikeable.