Chaos Theory

by KYW's Bill Wine

Chaos Theory is a slightly-out-of-control dramedy about a control freak who's completely out of control.

Ryan Reynolds plays a top-selling author and in-demand lecturer whose specialty is time management. This thirtysomething husband and father is so organized, so efficient, so directed, that he doesn't take a step before filling out a schedule, making a to-do list, writing out possibilities on index cards, and checking each thrice.

When his wife (played by Emily Mortimer), in an effort to help him get to a lecture engagement on time, sets his clock the wrong way, he is late. This seemingly minor glitch in his workday sets off a chain of seemingly random events that turn his life upside down in wholly unpredictable ways, triggering a spiral that is precipitously downward.

Gaining secret knowledge he wishes he didn't have, he suddenly finds himself tossing all the principles he's been advocating to his audiences right out the window. He will, he decides, live spontaneously, making decisions based solely on whims.

That may come in handy now that he has become one-third of a romantic triangle involving him, his wife, and his best friend, played by Stuart Townsend. But some of his impulses -- streaking (in several senses of that word) onto the ice at a hockey game being a prime example -- are ill-advised, to say the least.

So, dealing willy-nilly with issues related to loyalty, matrimony, and fatherhood, he grows more confused, more desperate, and more pathetic.

Reynolds, who demonstrated in the recent Definitely, Maybe that he was capable of more nuanced work than the snarky, smirky screen persona he had established earlier, once again attempts a more mature reading of a role than was his wont a decade ago, but without quite the same degree of success. Still, he's at least as good as the script he's handed, continuing his evolution into a credible and versatile leading man.

Director Marcos Sieg (Underclassman), working from a similarly dark but somewhat convoluted screenplay by Commandments scribe Daniel Taplitz, never quite brings his characters to life. We notice and even appreciate the way each functions within the parameters of the screenplay, but we never really buy them as three-dimensional, idiosyncratic people. And it would appear to be more of a screenplay problem than an array of acting lapses.

There are admittedly a few pleasing grace notes. And in its comic vein, the film is funniest when it is at its least realistic. But in those broadest of moments, the goings-on are so blatantly unrealistic, they undermine the rest of the downbeat story, which is told in flashback for no good reason.

So we'll organize 2 stars out of 4 for Chaos Theory, a mixed-message comedy-drama that's a sometimes muddy mix of merriment and misery. There's more than enough theory to contemplate, but not nearly enough effectively organized chaos.

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This week KYW's Steve Nikazy and KYW movie critic Bill Wine look at the comedy-war film, "The Men Who Stare at Goats," the animated re-make, "A Christmas Carol," and the horror-mystery-thriller "The Fourth Kind." (18:45)

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