Studios comedies are everywhere you look these days, and that’s been the case for almost as long as cinema has been the dominant way of beaming entertainment directly into the eyeballs of fans everywhere, but it’s stating the exceedingly obvious to say that being funny is the bare minimum audiences should be expecting.
2013’s Baggage Claim fails to reach the lowest rung on the comedic ladder, even if star Paula Patton delivers a charismatic and charming lead performance that deserved to find itself in the middle of a much better film. The tale of airport romance did turn a profit after earning $22.5 million at the box office on an $8 million budget, but reviews were not kind.
Written and directed by author, playwright, and filmmaker David E. Talbert, Patton’s flight attendant has her sister’s wedding coming up and no sign of being anything other than single on the horizon, so she gives herself a one-month deadline to find a man.
After catching wind of her plan, co-workers and friends put plans in motion to have her ‘accidentally’ bump into her exes as they criss-cross the country, with spectacularly unfunny results. Despite featuring a sprawling ensemble cast of top talent, Baggage Claim could only muster a 15% score and 48% user rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
However, it’s suddenly exploded in popularity to become one of Hulu’s ten most-watched titles, with FlixPatrol naming it as the platform’s seventh-biggest hit at the time of writing.