That bare description of plot sounds like it could actually make a decent romantic screwball comedy. Any idea can be well or poorly done, right? Unfortunately, Rough Magic goes straight for "poorly," not even stopping at "well." The script is trite, the pacing slow, the direction amateurish. Myra's surrogate father figure, her boss at the beginning of the movie, looks and acts like an overdone, overage, overweight Mandrake the Magician. Myra's soon to be ex-boyfriend, the wannabe senator, is a raving loonie who plans to have their marriage in a museum dedicated to his family's uranium business. No, I'm not kidding. When asked, "Why not a church?" he enthuses, "This is a church! A church of atomic science!"

Myra herself is impossible to like, a compulsive thief with a smart mouth (as smart as this script can make it, anyway) who constantly lies to everyone around her - even when there's no logical reason to lie. Bridget Fonda once again proves her inability to turn in a decent job of acting. I hate to say that, it sounds meanspirited. I'm sure she's a very nice person in real life, but the God's honest truth is she's not much of an actress. Even Russell Crowe, my favorite actor, with a vein of talent deep and wide running through his soul, is unimpressive as Ross. His character is vague, unaffecting, and Russell endows him with a mushy, obviously fake New York accent. Or maybe it's Chicago. Hell, Boston. It's so inconstantly applied it's hard to tell. Almost as if, realizing he was involved in a piece of forgettable, poorly produced trash, Russell decided not even to try.

There's zero romantic chemistry between the two main characters. Fonda and Crowe move - lethargically - through the motions of flirting and finding each other attractive. And it's not believable. Obviously the only reason this is happening, these two people are falling in love, is that the script requires it.

After 30 minutes or so, I just couldn't hack it anymore and stopped the tape. The person who had Rough Magic before me also stopped it less - MUCH less - than halfway through. I know this because someone was not kind, they did not rewind. I did, of course - thus readying this piece of dreck for the next unsuspecting victim. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.