Cute movies are trouble and I don’t love them.

“I Love Trouble,” Julia Roberts first “action-adventure” movie is really

“Pretty Woman” meets “The Pelican Brief” while attempting to rip off those

Newspaper “Battle of the Sexes” films of the 30s and 40s.

The film doesn’t work. Although it is refreshing to see Roberts in a role

that suits her better than the brooding beauty movie (“Dying Young,” “Steel

Magnolias,” “The Pelican Brief,” “Sleeping With the Enemy”), her role ends

up to be so dang corny.

Another problem is Nick Nolte. Is he really that good of an actor? People

praised his performance in “The Prince of Tides” for the delicate subject

matter and being the victim of rape under the care of therapist Barbra

Streisand. They were really just pleased to see him in something other than

“Teachers,””48 Hours,” “Weeds,” “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” etc.,

etc., where he played the gruff ladies’ man over and over and over…

As far as the chemistry between Nolte and Roberts is concerned, there is

more of a scientific gel between Beavis and Butthead in a lab working out

the kinks of genetic engineering (heh heh heh, heh heh heh). He’s a

savvy columnist who gets his way with the ladies, with the paper he writes

for, with the city of Chicago. She’s a scrappy newcomer who initiates a

challenge to Nolte from the other side of the tracks (she writes for the

city’s other paper) while covering a train wreck story. At first he makes a

move on her while she’s trying to conduct an interview. His opinion of

women/ women reporters is demeaning. She brushes him off, one-ups him on

the story the next day and an interesting tone is set – Roberts needs a

good bitchy role, but this is all to no avail. She falls for him.

Why? Well, he’s, er…..good question. Although he appears more appealing

after those less than generous close-ups in “Tides,” Nolte has about as

much sex appeal as Tom Arnold and he and Roberts are about as compatible as

Tom and Roseanne.

In the midst of their going head to head in the newsworld they come across

a story that involves scientific secrets about genetic engineering that is

connected to (what else?) some rotten politicians. They both go after the

story for personal gain – he goes through her bag while she’s in the

bathroom going through his wallet. So suspense meets slapstick and the

result is just stupid. How seriously should we take their intriguing

investigation when they are too busy with their own little love war?

What is there to do with Julia Roberts? All of her movies make tons of

money, but ever since “Pretty Woman” they have, well, sucked. What’s the

deal? She needs to stick to comedy, and leave the sophisticated stuff to

the serious actresses. If not, she may just become “the wife of Lyle,” who

has done a fine job in Altman’s pictures.