Addicted to Love, starring Matthew Broderick and Meg Ryan, is a revenge and romance comedy that doesn't quite cut it. Broderick portrays Sam, a man who has been dumped by his long time love, and Ryan is Maggie, the woman Sam meets in the Big Apple who is dying to enact revenge on her ex-boyfriend, the man that Sam's girl dumped him for. They join forces to spy on their ex-lovers and end up loving each other.

This has to be one of Meg Ryan's sexier movies (out of the ones I've seen), even though it's a tame R rated film without much skin. The reasoning behind this statement is that she has been known for her subtle romance movies such as Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail. Playing the dark, sinister girl with a bad attitude is a good change of pace, and probably refreshing for her, even though her character really isn't that "bad."

Broderick, on the other hand, starts out as the loving, kind, and gentle kind of guy and ends up thinking up some cruel tricks. Still, what is surprising from the beginning is how crazy he gets when he hears that his girlfriend has left him for another guy. He almost immediately stakes out a place in an abandoned building across the street, sets up telescopes and stuff to watch every room in the house, talks to his girlfriend as if she was right there, and jots down notes of the relationship between his ex and her new lover. While Ryan's character was seemingly dark from the start, Broderick seems to snap early on, and his tactics seem a little outrageous, even for this kind of comedy.

The other problem is that the movie isn't that funny. There are a few funny scenes and a good deal of enjoyable scenes, but nothing outrageously hilarious.

The stars kept me watching and the antics were good, but by the end, Addicted to Love ends up as a marginally disappointing film.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.