Rating: PG13
Genre:
Comedy
Theatrical Release: 08/23/2002(USA)
Release Date: 01/28/2003
SubTitles: English
Dubbed: English/French
Sound: DD5.1/DS
Run Time: 99 Minutes
Flags: Not For Children, Adult Language, Adult Humor, Sexual Situations
Distributor/Studio: Paramount
A process server makes an unusual alliance with a beautiful but devious woman in this
comedy.
Joe Tyler (
Matthew Perry) is a former attorney whose career went bust when he picked up some clients who turned out to be associated with the Mafia. These days,
Joe makes his living as a process server, who presents people with legal papers -- papers they would usually prefer not to get. One of
Joe's fellow servers,
Tony (
Vincent Pastore), is trying to weasel him out of his job, and has starting tipping off
Joe's targets before he can deliver their papers in order to get
Joe in dutch with their boss,
Ray (
Cedric the Entertainer).
Joe, however, is able to persuade
Ray to give him another chance with a high-profile client,
Gordon (
Bruce Campbell), a wealthy Texas cattle baron who has decided to divorce his wife and business partner,
Sara (
Elizabeth Hurley), in order to marry another woman,
Kate (
Amy Adams). When
Joe presents
Sara with the divorce papers, she is shocked by the news, which would cost her her half of the
Gordon fortune. After
Joe gets carjacked and finds herself on the same bus with
Sara, she makes him a deal: If he's willing to take back the papers, say he never presented them, and serve a divorce petition to
Gordon first, she'll pay
Joe an even million dollars.
Serving Sara became the focus of some unexpected controversy during its production -- first when
Matthew Perry took a brief leave from the production to enter a rehabilitation clinic to fight an addiction to painkillers, and later when
Elizabeth Hurley's former boyfriend,
Steve Bing, accused
Perry of being the father of
Hurley's child (a charge both
Hurley and
Perry denied, and was proven false by blood tests).
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide