What town was the movie Catch and Release Filmed in?

In bad romantic comedies, there’s a rule about characters explaining themselves: Don’t.

Don’t explain what happened, what you meant, or what you want. If you do, we’ll find out too soon just how thin this plot is, and the movie will end too soon.

So just don’t. Instead, offer a sad smile, and walk away.

This simple rule is the same one that allows TV soap operas to keep going day after day, year after year. Someone says something – “You must mean my amnesiac schizophrenic twin sister!” – and then walks out, leaving the befuddled co-star to stare 10 degrees off-camera, pondering the horrors to come in the near future.

Such teasing, wistful non-explanations populate the long-delayed “Catch and Release,” a romantic comedy-drama with little comedy, no drama and less romance than your average YouTube video. As lovelorn Grey, Jennifer Garner must be kept constantly in the dark so that her film has a chance of lasting more than five minutes.

As the movie opens, Grey is dressed in black and greeting funeral guests. Turns out her fiancé, Grady – Grey and Grady, there’s a nowhere-but-

Hollywood pairing for you – died on an adventure trip just before they were to marry. The remaining characters are supposed to explore Grady’s past and plan their own futures. Think of “The Big Chill,” minus the great writing, the enormous acting talent, the wit, or the soundtrack of that seminal film. We’ve traded the best of Motown for some nondescript, annoying acoustic guitar strumming.

That’s not to say the filmmakers are not enamored of their own soundtrack – they seem to love it so much, or distrust their own dialogue even more, that they let those fey guitars drown out more than one conversation.

Spoiler warning here: The plot description to follow happens very early in the movie, but if you insist on seeing “Catch and Release” and don’t want to know anything, please enjoy our Sudoku page.

Grady’s past includes more money, ex-girlfriends, and illegitimate children than poor, skinny Grey had counted on in her upstanding fiancé. Grady’s best friend Fritz, played by Timothy Olyphant of HBO’s “Deadwood,” sticks around to supply information in infuriating dribs and drabs.

Slight slapstick comic relief is provided by Kevin Smith, taking a break from directing “Clerks 14,” and Sam Jaeger, as Grey and Grady’s best friends. Smith has his moments, though writer-director Susannah Grant regrettably resorts to another rule: Bachelors who mix drinks in blender must forget to put the cover on before pressing “mix.” Isn’t there enough of that on Nickelodeon?

Much of “Catch and Release” was filmed in and around Boulder, or Flatiron facsimiles. There are brief moments of recognition for the audience in a shady bridge on the CU campus, or a shot of Pearl Street with the Flatirons looming like friendly retrievers in the background. On the other hand, if the rest of the world believes Boulderites are this vapid, CU grads are in for long job hunts.

I’m not necessarily a great judge of chemistry – I thought Ross Perot-Admiral Stockdale was pure heat. But I am fairly certain Garner-Olyphant doesn’t have it. Garner looks about 17, and the script gives her about as much depth as “But I’m a Cheerleader.”

Olyphant is drop-dead beautiful, heck, even I have a man-crush on the guy, but he’s a 25-watt bulb on a dimmer switch severely restricted by building management. He smiles, and we wait for something else to happen, and we wait, and we wait. Still waiting.

When they finally hit the bed together – oops! spoiler warning! – Grant breaks up the screen in the oddest ways. The shot looks like nothing so much as a kaleidoscope fornicating with a prayer wheel. Only in Boulder, I guess.

Grant has talent, so I’m not sure how all this happened. Before taking up directing, she wrote scripts for “Erin Brock-

ovich” and last year’s gem “In Her Shoes.” With “Catch and Release,” it’s clear she hasn’t yet matched the rhythm of her shooting and editing eye to the snappy allure of her writing.

Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at .

“Catch and Release” |

PG-13 for language, sexual situations, mature subject matter| 1 hour, 45 minutes|DRAMA/ COMEDY|Written and directed by Susannah Grant; starring Jennifer Garner, Timothy Olyphant, Kevin Smith and Sam Jaeger|Opens today at area theaters.

Garner’s grosses

Jennifer Garner stars in “Catch and Release,” opening today. Here’s a look at the success of her five films (first figure is total domestic gross, second is opening weekend, in millions, except as noted):

1. Daredevil $102.5 ($40.3, 2003)

2. Charlotte’s Web (voice)

$74.2 ($11.5, 2006)

3. 13 Going on 30 $57.2

($21.1, 2004)

4. Dude, Where’s My Car?

$46.7 ($13.8, 2000)

5. Elektra $24.4 ($12.8, 2005)

BOXOFFICEMOJO.COM

SPOILER ALERT — although I’m not sure I can really spoil this movie any further.

"Catch and Release" marks the third time Jennifer Garner has played a young woman grieving her fiancé (twice on TV’s "Alias," if you count the dead-then-not-dead flame). This time around, on the day of her man’s funeral (the day that would have been their wedding, hence the massive cake hiding out in the fridge), Garner does a pretty bang-up job of looking thoroughly miserable and lost. I felt pretty sad just watching her.

And then, later on, I felt pretty sad that I had to watch the rest of the movie.

I know first-time director Susannah Grant (who wrote "Erin Brockovich") set and partially shot the film in Boulder, and everyone and their mom wants to go and see if they can find their friend in the background. But hear me now or hear me later: this cheese is congealed.

This might be the worst movie I’ve seen since the remake of "Alfie." Grant even ripped off the ending of Cameron Crowe’s "Singles." (And, incidentally, finding your friend in "Catch and Release" is gonna be tough, since the filmmakers went nuts with the shallow focus and blew out the background.)

It makes a girl wonder whether maybe that first sad scene was shot last, and Garner, knowing she’s been involved in much better things, just felt the tears well up on their own.

It’s a damn shame, too, since she was so fab on the tele.

Really, the first sign of trouble is when the dead guy’s buddy from L.A., Fritz ("Deadwood’s" excellent Timothy Olyphant), hooks up with a caterer at the funeral, and then announces he’s taking a break from directing films because the film industry is all "sell, sell, sell … and we pass it off as art." This is announced in the first 10 minutes — dangerous dialogue to be using in a film that then proceeds to hawk local teamaker Celestial Seasonings’ wares with wild abandon.

Immediately after the funeral, Garner’s character, Gray Wheeler, moves in with the dead guy’s two roommates, while Fritz cools out on the couch. One of the roommates (Sam Jaeger) is bland and nice, and doesn’t get a lot of dialogue. I liked him.

The other roommate, played by "Clerks" director Kevin Smith, is an affable idiot perpetually clad in Celestial Seasonings T-shirts, spouting quotes from the back of the Red Zinger box.

And you would think that, by now, Smith would be past doing scenes involving a running blender missing its lid. Covered in whatever he was pulverizing, you’d imagine Smith would pull a Nancy Reagan and just say "no."

As Gray begins to settle into her grieving, some curious things happen. Her wannabe mother-in-law (Fiona Shaw) asks for the engagement ring back. Gray discovers a mystery cell phone, a large sum of money, another woman (Juliette Lewis) and a child, all belonging to her dirt-nappin’ paramour.

Then, she starts making out with Fritz.

She’s grieving. Confused is OK. Bad decisions are understandable. But with stoic tears and only a single scene of fire-water psychotherapy, followed by a drunken stumble home, it seems like Gray is handling all of this pretty well, apparently without any friends of her own.

This woman is a rock, and she is entirely too self-possessed to make out with her dead fiancé’s best friend shortly after the funeral — unless she’s morally lax. Plus, Olyphant’s Fritz, perpetually sporting a smug smile, round-the-clock stubble and big, stupid, fluffy hair, comes off as a slime ball.

While Gray makes out with Fritz (once against a wall of fishhooks, which isn’t exactly hot and a total waste of a prop opportunity), and with a cornucopia of subplots spilling around them, the one thing the film harps on is how well she’s getting to know her former fiancé.

Smith wails, "He was just the Man, you know?" No, we don’t. All we learn by the end of the film is that he was a secretly rich (read: miserly), lyin’, cheatin’ bastard.

OK, maybe she was right to make out with his best friend.

And, as for Boulder, Grant clearly tried to make the city a character in the film — but, as we’ve seen, the characters in this film aren’t all that sweet or believable or even likable. So why would Boulder be any different?

We see shots on the Pearl Street Mall, Bolder Boulder posters aplenty, a filthy Subaru hatchback that just screams People’s Republic, even the Sink — turned into a café, no less.

But then there are Boulderites galore wearing cowboy hats and listening to country music, which just doesn’t ring true in any way. Nor do the characters’ freaked-out reactions to the notion of "chi-blocking food." Even if you think "chi-blocking food" is bogus, it’s not exactly something that sounds out of place in this town.

Plus, most of the film — particularly that enormous river scene — clearly was shot in Canada, not at the foot of the Flatirons.

Yet, all told, there are some genuinely moving setups in "Catch and Release," and the premise of the film seems solid. The pitch — girl discovers her dead fiancé has some secrets and puts the puzzle and her life back together with the help of his good buddies — probably seemed sweet on paper. Garner even had me tearing up a couple of times.

I just don’t know what went wrong here. The ingredients were good.

But somebody blended it with the lid off.

Contact Camera Film Critic Jeanine Fritz at (303) 473-1397 or .