So I’m sitting around rubbing the bridge of my nose trying to figure out what the hell to say about this movie ‘Meet Bill’. Damn if I can’t think of anything witty or clever or smart to type and it’s all Bill’s fault. Not mine. I accept no responsibility. For anything. Ever. You see ‘Meet Bill’ is not a bad movie though it certainly has its faults, but neither is it a good movie as it far too disjointed and erratic to be considered that, but it did have its moments. ‘Meet Bill’ is the kind of movie that one watches and then pop in the next movie or go out to dinner or go to bed and then not think about it much anymore. It’s inconsequential. This isn’t a bad thing though because I’d rather watch inconsequential than have to watch ‘No Country for Old Men’ again. But I did watch the movie and to justify me sitting on my ass for hours in a day watching movies, I gotta say something about it. Otherwise I was just sitting on my ass as opposed to sitting on my ass for artistic endeavor.

So Bill (Aaron Eckhart) is having a mid-life crisis. He has a job he hates which consists of working in his father-in-law’s bank, though it seems to be a relatively high paying gig and on top of this wife Jess (Elizabeth Banks) is cheating on him with a slick TV anchorman (Timothy Olyphant). Bill is starting to gain weight due to his addiction to snicker bars, he is constantly compared to his studly brother Sargent (Craig Bierko) who happens to be openly gay which has nothing to do with anything, and finally Bill has a terrible haircut. So in short, Bill is a loser. Thus we have our first problem with this movie because Bill is NOT a loser. Bill has a job that is getting him fat paid. Sure he hates it, but damn Bill, get a hobby to cover up that pain. Bill’s wife is hot as hell! Sure somebody else is sticking it to her which does kind of suck, but if Bill sucked it up and starting handling his business then perhaps that opening wouldn’t have been created. Even still, if she’d be so kind to tighten me up three times a week, she can do whatever the hell she wants those other four days. Bill’s poor body image could fixed by with a few situps, his hair can be fixed with a quick trip Lady Jane’s and

though his brother may have been quite the stud yesterday, he’s gay today so his studliness is really nothing to get all upset about, plus this brother cares for Bill way more than Bill cares for him. So Bill is NOT a loser. Where I come from we call people like this bitches. Bill is a bitch.

What Bill needs is a change and that comes in the form of The Kid who has adopted Bill as his mentor and is a slick, smooth talking, pot selling high school student who like Charlie Bartlett, Ferris Beuller and so many other smooth white suburban male children before him, is that wise child with an old soul who is going to take Bill under his wing and show him the important things in life. These things would be smoking weed, looking at Jessica Alba, looking at his wife in her underwear through a window, feeling some woman’s fake boobs, swimming, living in a tent, buying a Krispy Kreme franchise, setting off fireworks and other fun things that fifteen year old boys and forty five year old men probably shouldn’t be doing together. You see Bill needs to learn to love himself before he can love someone else… or something.

What ‘Meet Bill’ had going for it was that it was a pretty amusing movie. Aaron Eckhart is fine actor who has the face of a schlub, but can turn on that acting ability and automatically turn that schlub from zero to hero in six seconds flat. Kind of like he eventually did in this movie. It’s a testament to Eckhart’s skill as an actor that folks don’t leave this movie hating Bill, because as we discussed earlier, Bill is a bitch. A whiny, crying, complaining, no account bitch whose problems could probably be fixed by borrowing somebody’s testicle and buying himself an Xbox or something. But Eckhart pulled it off and actually made you care about this bitch and it wasn’t until I started writing this mess that I realized how big a bitch Bill actually was. The movie also had Jessica Alba and Elizabeth Banks in it and they are very pretty.

Naturally this is also the movies biggest problem because despite Eckhart’s skill as an actor, Bill still doesn’t generate a whole lot of sympathy. Bill’s relationship with his brother is left kind of open as I personally was curious about why Bill has this animosity towards him, yet the brother is so emphatic towards Bill. Plus, though we did get a few brief glimpses, it would have been interesting to see what in the hell Bill’s hot wife saw in him in the first place. The whole smooth kid thing has been done better in previous movies, and I gotta admit I didn’t see the humor in a high school kid and a middle aged man getting stoned and acting like idiots in a department store. Instead of smoking weed with the little guy Bill might have wanted to fire up an Intervention. I’m just saying.

‘Meet Bill’ is completely forgettable disposable entertainment, but at least it’s entertainment.