I will say one thing in favor of this oddball comedy: It has a great cast. But even Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper and Thomas Haden Church can’t make a silk purse out of this sow’s ear. Someone must have had some serious dirt on the three to coerce them into signing onto All About Steve – either that, or the script wasn’t available for a quick read through. One look at it would have told them that this is doubtless the worst movie any of them ever have been, or will be, involved with.

The script, written by Kim Barker who also worked on the highly forgettable License to Wed, has all the polish and sophistication of a third grader’s homework—after it’s been eaten by the dog. Yes, this is supposedly a comedy, and screenwriters are allowed to take license with reality, but this is so loosely based on anything that could ever happen in the real world it is impossible to relate. The highly moralistic ending sputters flops about like a stinky fish about to be thrown back.

The story revolves around Mary Horowitz (Bullock), an insanely verbose, cross-word writing trivia nut who lives at home with her parents and who appears to be so socially dysfunctional that she needs psychological treatment and medication far more than she needs a boyfriend and a fulltime job. But of course, the latter two are the answers to every woman’s woes, so the film sends her in quest of both, putting her own, and countless other people’s lives and jobs in peril. She’s in hot pursuit of Steve (Cooper)—the two had been introduced briefly when their parents lined them up for an ill-fated date. She jumped his bones within the first five minutes of meeting him, and the television news photographer mercifully got a call to cover an event in Texas, so it was datus interuptus. Regardless of the fact that Steve works for a local affiliate in Sacramento, he and his crew, consisting of reporter Hartman (Haden Church) and producer Angus (Ken Jeong), are sent all over the country to cover weather and ridiculous human rights stories, such as; should a three-legged baby’s parents be allowed to amputate the third leg? Wherever the news crew goes (what, they can afford to send a crew out but they can’t afford to subscribe to a wire service?) the same group of impaired demonstrators shows up to chant and wave banners. Convinced that Steve is her destiny, Mary bonds with the demonstrators and mercilessly pursues Steve from story to story, until she becomes the story herself.

In the trailer, we see Mary, running in her ever-present, clunky red boots, and falling in a hole. That’s what should have happened to this film, and it never should have been rescued. Director Phill Traill, who is known mostly for directing random TV episodes, didn’t have a chance with this ludicrous script, which more appropriately could have been called “All About Inanity.”