Movie Review: Baggage Claim

Baggage Claim started out way too "cutesy" and cliched for my taste, but by the end of the film, it had redeemed itself somewhat with a few funny lines here and there. I will say that the concept of finding exes that were flying and then making sure you are on that flight, to run into them, was rather interesting, but it's a good thing that the main character was a flight attendant (hence the film name), or else those costs would have added up quickly.

Flight attendant Montana Moore (Paula Patton) is bummed: her sister just announced that she's engaged, at the ripe age of 20 or so, and Montana is almost 30 and currently has no prospects for marriage. Her mother (Jenifer Lewis) has frequently told her that if you're not married by 30, you're practically an old maid, and Montana needs to find a date for her sister's wedding. Her friends Gail (Jill Scott) and Sam (Adam Brody), both flight attendants too, come up with an idea: they'll let her know if any of her exes are flying on the airline and if they are, they'll make sure she's on the flight too, so that she can "randomly" bump into them and hopefully reconnect. The plan goes disastrously, of course, but it's fun watching Montana be wined and dined while it lasts.

A few scenes in this movie were way too cheesy, especially near the beginning, but it gets better near the end. Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher) plays Montana's gorgeous next-door neighbor, as well as her BFF since high school, and Tia Mowry-Hardrict has a funny cameo as the mistress of one of Montana's exes. Some of the airport personnel had some good parts as well, especially the TSA scanner, who frequently yelled for passengers to "take their pockets OUT OF their pockets" for him to check.

Maybe see this movie. It's not completely awful, but you can predict the ending of the movie within five minutes, and I also found it hard to believe that Patton, who is very pretty, would have that much trouble finding and/or keeping a guy - perhaps they should have cast someone more homely. There's a line near the beginning of the film, too, where she's offered a donut, and says "no thanks, I'm watching my figure," which elicited "boos" and "tsk tsks" from the audience at my screening (mostly the female audience) - it seemed rather false, I guess. Baggage Claim is fine if you're looking for a "fluff movie" to see, but then again, there are better "fluff movies" at the theater right now that are better.

Baggage Claim is in theaters today, September 27th, and is rated PG-13 with a runtime of 96 minutes. 3 stars out of 5.