I just saw this movie on TV. It’s a romantic comedy starring Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, and Tom Hardy. Witherspoon plays a woman named Lauren who moved to L.A. six months earlier, to be with her boyfriend, who then subsequently dumped her. So now she’s living alone, working at a job as a product tester, and her only friend is a woman named Trish, who is played by Chelsea Handler.

Trish tries to give Lauren advice about dating, but Lauren just has no luck with men and, to make things worse, she keeps accidentally running into her ex-boyfriend and his new fiancé. Pine and Hardy play a couple of secret CIA agents who are partners, and best friends. Pine is called “FDR” and his character is initially seen as a bit of a womanizer, while Hardy is “Tuck”, who has an ex-wife and young son, and is more interested in trying to find a new woman to have a relationship with. As the movie starts, FDR and Tuck are assigned to desk duty at the local CIA headquarters, due to the fact that a Russian terrorist has vowed revenge on them for killing his brother. Tuck signs up to an online dating website, and arranges a date with Lauren, who was signed up to the site against her will by Trish, but then decides to give it a chance. Lauren and Tuck hit it off on their date, but then afterward Lauren bumps into FDR at a local video store (do they even still have those in L.A.?) and makes a date with him too. When FDR and Tuck find out that they’re both about to date the same woman, each one initially offers to back off for the sake of their friendship, but then they make a gentleman’s bet to both date her until she chooses the one she wants to be with. In the meantime, they agree to not interfere with each other’s dates, and not to attempt to have sex with Lauren, until she’s chosen one of them.

Of course, both men break these rules. They each get their own CIA teams together to conduct research on Lauren to find out how to win her over and also spy on each other’s dates with her, and then as things get more serious, they sabotage each other, eventually putting a strain on their friendship. Meanwhile, Lauren remains conflicted about dating two men at once, turning to Trish for advice on the best way to choose who she likes better. It’s all good-natured fun, for the most part.

There’s a bit of a turn in the 3rd act when that Russian terrorist comes to L.A. and tries to kidnap Lauren in order to get to FDR and Tuck. It becomes more of an action movie, which changes the tone of the film, and I just felt that some the action scenes were out of place and unnecessary. Despite that, I still enjoyed the film, overall. Witherspoon, Pine, and Hardy all put on stellar performances. Chelsea Handler essentially plays herself in this film, so if you like comedy (like I do), then you’ll like her in this movie, too. There’s also a bit role by one of my favorite actresses, Angela Basset, as the CIA chief. And I was surprised when the film ended to see in the credits that one of the producers of this film was Will Smith!

Directed by McG, and written by Timothy Dowling, Simon Kinberg, and Marcus Gautesen, THIS MEANS WAR is available on AMAZON. I’d recommend it if you want something light and fun to watch.