Accidental Love (15)

Director: David O. Russell (as Stephen Greene)

Starring: Jessica Biel, Jake Gyllenhaal, James Marsden

THEY say that you can be crazy in love but what happens when you fall in love because you have gone crazy?

A vague answer to that is about all you can expect from Accidental Love, a clumsy, misjudged comedy that languished in development hell before its director disowned it.

The film follows Alice Eckle (Jessica Biel), an air-headed roller-skating waitress in a small Indiana town.

She is about to get engaged to her self-centred trooper boyfriend Scott (James Marsden) but, in a scene that is more forced than funny, Alice is accidentally shot in the head with a nail gun.

With no insurance to cover the costs of an operation to take the three inch spike out of her brain, she goes on a journey to Washington to meet Congressman Howard Birdwell (Jake Gyllenhaal).

The pair fight for healthcare reforms but along the way the nail lodged in Alice's head causes strange erratic behaviour and tugs her heart strings in different directions.

One of the many problems with Accidental Love is that it does not know whether it is a rom-com or a political satire.

Biel and Gyllenhaal are endearing enough as Alice and mild mannered Howard but much of the rest of the cast are exaggerated and cartoonish.

There is nothing wrong with larger than life characters as long as they are funny but there are no big laughs in Accidental Love. It barely raises a smile.

Marsden is at least memorable as moustachioed trooper Scott who thinks of everything in percentage terms and loves his Oakleys more than he does Alice.

Meanwhile, Kurt Fuller and Tracy Morgan make a decent enough double act as Norm and Keyshawn but remain largely irrelevant to the plot.

The film also feebly tries its hand at satire. The politicians are more concerned about a military base being established on the moon to protect American interests on a galactic level than 'socialist' healthcare reform.

But the point being made is so blunt that the filmmakers should not have bothered.

No wonder David O. Russell, behind such hits as American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook and The Fighter, abandoned the project after seven years of delays and production halting around eight times.

In its defence, Accidental Love is coherent and well paced from a structural point of view.

But its biggest crime is that it is just boring and so you do not really care who double crosses who and if Alice can finally get her operation.

You will want a nail lodged in your head by the time you get through this.