We are chugging along with Matt Perry week here at Stale Popcorn. While yesterday’s feature proved to be a lot more enjoyable than I had initially imagined, today’s feature is enjoyable in the “this is terrible” sense and not so much in the watchable sense. I have seen today’s feature a few times, and I’m not sure why I’ve watched it more than once, but alas, Matt Perry is in it and it has a 4% on Rotten Tomatoes so how can we go wrong? It also features a pretty solid cast featuring a King of Comedy, a king of cult movies, a Soprano and one of the foxiest women England has ever offered the world. It also features…a plot involving process servers.
What are we watching today? Serving Sara, the 2002 romp starring Matt Perry and Big Pussy as competing process servers attempting to serve divorce papers to Elizabeth Hurley. Their boss is Cedric the Entertainer and Bruce Campbell is there too, somehow. Sounds good, right? Well don’t be so sure! This one was directed by Reginald Hudlin, director of House Party and Boomerang, both of which I enjoyed. I will readily admit the only reason I have watched this is for the cast (sans Perry), but I totally forgot this only has a 4%. This should be an interesting rewatch. This one also failed to recoup its $29 million budget, only pulling in $20 million at the box office. I know all of this has you absolutely thrilled to get going, so why don’t we press play?
Our movie begins with Joe Tyler (Matthew Perry) attempting to serve Mafia guy Fat Charlie (Joe Viterelli) at a Mafia hangout with no luck. He sneaks in through a service entrance and “Oops (Hit Em Up Style)” by Blu Cantrell is playing on the stereo so this movie rules already. Oh, he’s at a casino. He takes a seat at a blackjack table where he clearly doesn’t fit. He calls out the dealer for dealing from the bottom of the card deck but he’s wrong and security grabs him when he tries to act like a tough guy. This summons Fat Charlie who comes out and threatens Joe with death because he accused his casino of cheating. Joe claims he has proof and hands Fat Charlie an envelope. Turns out it’s a summons. Charles has been served but is not happy about it and Joe fakes like he’s with the cops over a walkie talkie to escape safely. The walkie talkie was being used on the other end by a random kid he paid. Back in the office, Joe’s boss Ray (Cedric the Entertainer) is upset it took Joe six days to serve Charlie. Ray wants Joe to try and be more like Tony (Vincent Pastore) who is way more successful with serving papers, but Ray calls him a neanderthal. Tony and Joe clearly have a heated rivalry. Ray calls Joe out for falling off from being the best server. Meanwhile, Tony has been serving at a much higher rate. Joe keeps insulting Tony’s intelligence in that obnoxious way only Matt Perry can. Turns out Tony processed all the paperwork of his latest servings with the wrong dates so all his work is mute. I don’t know how this works so I guess so.
Ray gives Joe a high stakes job in Texas since Tony can’t get the date right. Tony is pissed but Joe seems pleased. Ray’s suit is amazing. Ray tells Joe to be fast and successful and Joe smarmily insults Ray’s suit. Meanwhile, Gordon (Bruce Campbell) Moore and Sara (Elizabeth Hurley) Moore are driving to an airport in Texas. They kiss goodbye as Sara heads off on a flight to New York. Gordon pulls up to a different gate and welcomes Kate (Amy Adams), seemingly his mistress, into his car outside. Two-timer! Back at the office, Joe is doing prep work and Tony comes over under the guise of apology but he really steals some information from Joe. Tony then calls Sara, warning her to leave her apartment and avoid Joe to make Joe’s job more difficult. She leaves, heeding the warning. Joe then arrives as Sara’s leaving, asking if she’s Sara but Sara lies and leaves in the escalator as Joe sneaks into the apartment. An older woman in the hall greets Sara by name and Joe takes off after her on the stairs, realizing she lied. Sara runs and hides in a spa with Joe giving chase. She makes it outside and he has a bunch of slapstick-lite encounters that allow her to get away.
Joe goes back to the office where Ray and Tony chastise Joe for his inability to serve Sara. Ray insists Tony is taking over the job and Joe is pissed. For some reason, even though he’s off the job, he decides to go looking for her anyway. He rolls a flaming tire into her apartment building in order to sneak inside. Seems like overkill to me? He takes her mail and her phone and leaves. He heads into the police station and deals with a cop named Wilt played by Jerry fucking Stiller. He pays Wilt to get the contact info for the speed dials on Sara’s phone and Wilt tells him to come back at 7 for the intel. Joe calls the Miami Marriott and makes a reservation for Sara for the morning but I’m not sure why. He then tries what looks like wine he’s fermenting in his kitchen and spits it out. Is he like a homebrew wine guy in this? That seems like it’ll be an underexplored subplot. Nearby, Tony waits in his car until Joe leaves. Tony uses the spare key Joe barely hid to gain entrance to his apartment where he has some of the homebrew wine. Tony enjoys it. He finds a piece of paper that Joe wrote down Miami Marriott with Sara’s name and calls asking for her. The receptionist says she’ll be checking in tomorrow morning. Sounds like Joe was onto Tony and is sending him on a wild goose chase.
Joe enters the house of Amanda (Mary Lyons), who I assume is Sara’s sister (?), under the guise of checking the gas lines. Sara comes down and sees Joe. She begins to run but Joe serves her the divorce papers and gets his proof. Sara is shocked at this, as she thought her marriage was happy. Joe calls Ray to tell him he served Sara successfully and he better be compensated for doing it in his free time. He goes to enter his car but he’s assaulted by two of Charlie’s goons, Aldo (Vince Cecere) and Petey (Tony Longo). Sara and Amanda witness Joe getting his ass kicked from the window and laugh at his predicament. Joe continues to insult these guys who are walloping him because he’s a total moron. They lay him out on the street and steal his car. He ends up taking a bus back to the city as his car was stolen and Sara boards the same bus with a suitcase in tow. She makes fun of Joe for getting beat up, clearly hating him for doing his job. She reveals that Tony tipped her off about Joe being on his way to serve her and he deduces that Tony has been doing this for the last two months, ruining Joe’s performance. Tony meanwhile has arrived in Miami and is not having fun.
Sara asks Joe questions about process serving and complains about divorce terms and men in general. Joe mentions that because Sara was served “first” meaning the trial will end up being in Texas with Gordon having home advantage, and Sara getting nothing in the divorce. He mentions also that had she served Gordon first, she’d have the advantage as her trial would be in New York. I know nothing about divorce so I trust him on this. Sara then offers to pay Joe double what he was making from serving her to rip up the documentation and help her serve Gordon first. He declines, stating that he already reported serving her so if he flip-flopped now, his reputation would be in the toilet. She then offers to give him 10% of their divorce settlement and mentions that the couple co-owns a cattle ranch valued at $20,000. With her receiving 50% in the settlement, Joe would stand to earn a cool million for the job. He signs a contract drawn up quickly by Sara and agrees, starting their journey to serve Gordon.
Joe decides to call the Miami Marriott and tell them that anyone who comes looking for Sara is to be told she has transferred to the Marriott in Bangor, ME, thus keeping Tony on the road while they handle Gordon. Joe and Sara are off to Dallas. They head into the health club Gordon owns (I guess?) and Joe wants Sara to keep herself hidden while he serves Gordon. They request a tour of the facility and Joe pretends to be British. He mentions them knowing Gordon and the concierge states that Gordon is working out there currently. Joe goes off looking for Gordon but Sara finds him flirting with a blonde woman who I guess is a trainer. Sara screams at Gordon and yells for Joe, but the trainer beats Joe up as Gordon runs off. They leave after failing to serve Gordon.
Outside, Joe tells her she blew their element of surprise, as she was only supposed to point him out. He makes some transphobic jokes too, so I’m glad he’s failing. Joe mentions that Gordon can beat them infinitely by leaving the country as Joe can’t serve him internationally. They decide to go off on the chase to find him while Tony is about to continue his own chase after learning Sara has “relocated” to Bangor, ME. Ray then learns from Gordon’s lawyer that Sara and Joe are in Dallas trying to serve Gordon and Ray lies saying Joe doesn’t work for him. Gordon gets his personal security guard Vernon (Terry Crewes) to try and handle Joe. Tony, freezing his balls off in Maine, learns from Ray that Joe set him up and he’s in Dallas with Sara. Ray orders Tony to get to Dallas and serve Sara (they keep ALMOST saying the movie title) before Joe serves Gordon. Ray then calls Ms. Cleo (RIP) for a psychic reading to get some peace.
Sara and Joe attempt to speak to Doris (Ouida White), a secretary, to get more information on where Gordon might be, but Doris tells Sara that all the employees had to sign affidavits that morning concealing information on Gordon’s whereabouts. They head to the airport to fly to Durango where the Moore family cattle ranch resides. Sara’s credit cards have been cancelled by Gordon and she heads off in tears to the bathroom while Joe tries to talk to the agent. Since this is a comedy movie, Tony of course walks through the airport just in time to see Joe. They confront each other and Tony goes off to serve Sara, who is returning from the bathroom, but Joe lets a vicious dog loose from a crate and it attacks Tony, because everything works out in Joe World. He rushes Sara away, warning her Tony will be trying to serve her. They end up having some antics happen in the baggage claim, including riding the carousel in a compromising position. Joe manages to free himself but Sara’s jeans are caught in the conveyer and needs to remove her jeans to get out. I assume the director did this just to see Liz Hurley in her undies because there was no reason for that. Yes, I’m calling the director out on the misogyny but I can also appreciate seeing Liz Hurley in her undies. I am a man of dualities. She finds a sexy cowgirl outfit and they are off, just as the baggage guys return to see the disaster of a mess Joe and Sara made.
Tony tries to get tickets to Amarillo, as that’s where Joe told the agent he needed tickets for instead of Durango, but there are no tickets left. He sees Joes wallet and takes it, throwing it in the trash. Joe and Sara are in a car on their way to the cattle ranch and decide to get a hotel and go in the morning, so they don’t walk through piles of cow shit or get shot. Tony enters the property not having this foreknowledge and steps in cow shit AND gets shot at, especially after stating he’s a process server. Joe tries to get a free motel room by lying and saying he’s from the motel corporate office but the clerk isn’t buying it. Sara flashes the guy and that works, gaining them room 17. We get the typical road movie/enemies-become-friends-or-lovers trope where they bond in the motel room over their experiences, until Joe is allowed to sleep in the same bed as Sara.
The next morning at the ranch, Gordon is meeting with some businessmen from Japan and Vernon is walking the grounds keeping lookout for Joe. Joe and Sara sneak into the ranch where Joe is mistaken for a veterinarian who is there to assist in draining semen from a bull, because of course that’s what they’d mistake Matt Perry for. Joe tries to get out of this but realizes leaving will bring him face-to-face with Vernon, so he goes along with it and must “relieve prostate pressure” with an arm-length glove and an industrial sized pump container of lube. Sara gives him guidance on how to find a bull’s prostate once Joe’s hand is in the bull’s ass. Joe is eventually successful and the bull has an eruptive orgasm with Joe’s arm stuck in the bull’s ass. I imagine scenes like this are where the 4% comes from. One of the ranch hands mentions to Sara that Gordon is trying to sell the company. A potential sale will keep Gordon in town so he can’t evade them by leaving the country. Gordon flies away in his helicopter and Joe and Sara go to head back to Dallas. They are spotted by Vernon, however, and make it out of their car right as he violently rams his truck into it. He shoots at them as they run off, stealing the truck of the actual vets who had shown up to get the bull off.
Ray learns from Gordon’s lawyer that Joe was at the cattle ranch and Tony only had until the end of the day or this job will go out to other agencies. Ray calls Tony who’s getting operated on to have the pellets removed from his back. I guess he was shot. He also learns the ranch is in Durango and not Amarillo, so I don’t know who’s cattle ranch Tony got shot at but it wasn’t the real one. This movie is getting confusing. We were doing so good, too! They head over to Gordon’s place where Kate answers the door. Joe gains entrance under the guise of being related to a housekeeper as Sara sneaks in the back. Sara gains access to the safe where she steals some files, cash and Gordon’s passport with Maria (Mirelly Taylor), the housekeeper, lending assistance. Sara comes down to confront Kate who limply apologizes for the situation. Joe leaves his business card for Kate, saying to call him when her and Gordon eventually also divorce which horrifies Kate. Sara takes Gordon’s Jaguar and they head to a five-star hotel with Gordon’s money so they can relax and get refreshed.
Sara goes to hop in the bathtub while Joe looks over the files, finding out that Gordon was trying to sell the company behind Sara’s back, which I thought we already knew, but I guess now it’s official. Sara shoes Joe that she also took Gordon’s passport and learns he has been taking international trips with Kate while lying to Sara about where he was. Joe flirts with Sara trying to boost her confidence. He apologizes but Sara kisses him. The bathtub overflows while they’re distracted. Sara goes to hop in, stating they need to stick to “business first” and serve Gordon before they do anything sexual, so Joe leaves the room to give Sara privacy for her bath.
Joe goes to a rodeo bar type place where people are riding mechanical bulls. Kate pages him and finds him and confesses that she’s only with Gordon for the money. She also states that she understands the process and is willing to give up Gordon’s location for a million dollars and then never talk to Gordon again. Joe tells her they need to talk to Sara first. Joe brings her to the hotel room to discuss her offer, but Kate has double-crossed everyone and this was a ruse to get Tony to enter the room and serve Sara. Joe and Sara are pissed but Kate and Tony are overjoyed. Tony taunts Joe, mentioning he lost his job, and Kate leaves after also insulting Joe. Joe slams his head against the wall but Sara is super pissed that Joe fell for Kate’s bullshit, making him no better than her husband. She kicks him out of the hotel and tells him goodbye, ending their professional relationship and killing any chance of anything more between them.
Tony calls Ray and Ray tells Tony to fax the paperwork over, both ready to celebrate upon Tony’s return. Joe, meanwhile, is sitting and sulking, as any man would. He is poring over the photo Tony took for proof of serving (he had Kate take an extra one to give to Joe as a cruel souvenir) and Joe notices Tony’s watch. He calls Ray where Ray laughs in Joe’s face. Joe ensures Tony was already on the plane with the paperwork submitted before asking Ray what time it says on the file, informing him that Tony forgot to set his watch back to Central time, giving Joe one single hour to serve Gordon before the paperwork is filed because of the time zone delay. Joe calls Milt for info on Gordon’s location and Milt delivers. Ray meanwhile pages Tony on his two-way telling him he needs to handle this and Tony attempts to get off the plane as it’s about to depart, claiming to be a heart surgeon. Ray has to make a very tough phone call and inform Gordon’s lawyer that they served Sara but not completely, yet, stating it’s an enigma.
Joe finds Sara and they head off to serve Gordon before the hour ends. Joe and Sara approach Gordon at a restaurant where Vernon warns Gordon. Gordon takes off running with Joe on his ass. Gordon tries to call his lawyer as he runs through a bunch of statues of bulls. The lawyer warns Gordon to evade them for 22 minutes so they can’t serve them and Gordon heads into some amusement park or something. Ray calls Tony and tells him to go head down there and prevent Joe from serving Gordon. Turns out it’s like a monster truck rally, demolition derby type deal, and Joe and Sara get tickets to enter trying to find Gordon before time runs out. They head up to the announcer booth/sound area and convince the announcer that Gordon was bitten by a dangerous monkey or something. They show Gordon’s passport picture on the Jumbotron and tell everyone to slowly walk away from Gordon as he’s carrying a virus, which causes the crowd to point him out. Genius plan. Joe takes a mic and warns the crowd not to shot Gordon, as this is Texas. Gordon tries making a run for it and lands in some mud about to get crushed on the dirtbike track.
Everyone is fleeing under the assumption there is a contagious disease in the building. I’m sure this fits some kind of terror threat law being broken by Joe but whatever. Joe catches up to Gordon to serve him right before time runs out but a monster truck tries to run Joe over. The truck is driven by, you guessed it, Tony! Somehow, he found where they were and commandeered a monster truck. Fortunately, Tony is a dumbass and hits Vernon before sending the tuck sideways. Gordon takes off and almost escapes, but Sara throws beer cans at Gordon’s head, knocking him down. Joe manages to serve Gordon and get the picture right before the clock changes. They exit as the CDC vans pull up and enter in hazmat suits to deal with Gordon.
Outside, Sara tries to kiss Joe but he claims “business first” and asks for his million dollars. She laughs, telling him he’ll get his money. Tony, being taken to the hospital, tells Joe his career is over for flipping his mark before getting into a fight with Vernon, who is also being taken to a hospital. Joe and Sara then kiss. Fourteen months later, Joe mentions he used his money to buy a vineyard. I guess this was a subplot and maybe I didn’t pay attention. Sara brings him a glass of wine, saying she’ll “serve him” for a change. It’s their vineyard’s first bottle and the wine tastes like shit. I like that, they didn’t just have a fairy tale ending. The two go off to have sex and that’s our movie.
Okay this wasn’t as bad as I remembered. I also didn’t remember the last, like, forty minutes of the movie so it was almost a pleasant surprise. This week is already getting me to rethink my loathing of Matt Perry, so I think this week is already a success and we’re only halfway in! Honestly, this was a fun watch, a nice little popcorn flick. If you can deal with some painfully cringey scenes, this is definitely one to just turn your brain off and enjoy for 100 minutes, especially if, like me, you have an evergreen crush on Liz Hurley. If you do want to check this one out, it’s streaming for free on multiple apps right now, but I watched it on Prime which was supposed to show ads but never did, so that’d be my recommendation. We’ll be back tomorrow with yet another Matt Perry feature, this one the horrible sequel to one of my favorite movies of all time. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.