When comic cruelty to animals elicits the biggest laughs from a romantic comedy, you'll not only feel sheepishly guilty if you laugh at some of the jokes, but will also immediately know that the filmmakers obviously realized that this weakly plotted film needed a lot more "oomph," and thus the cinematic cry, "Throw in the dog!" or more accurately, "Just throw the dog!"
A mildly enjoyable, but certainly lightweight entry in the genre, "Lost & Found" is more likely to raise the ire of animal activists than please fans of films that normally star the likes of Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock and Julia Roberts, let alone be a huge commercial success.
With what would normally be called animal abuse in outside circles and which hit its apex with 1998’s hilarious gross out comedy, "There's Something About Mary," (where a vicious pooch got electrocuted and eventually ended up in a full-body cast after being flung from a window) this recent, but odd trend in Hollywood gets the full treatment with this flick.
Not only is little Jack tossed into rooms or suddenly dropped to the floor from several feet up, but he also has a bad hallucinatory trip (from eating too many human foods), is flung into the back seat of a car where he appears to be knocked out, and takes an unexpected and bumpy ride inside a clothes dryer. While some of those moments might elicit laughs from some viewers, you've got to wonder if this is all screenwriters can come up with nowadays to generate laughs.
That said, one must consider that this is the first script from screenwriters J.B. Cook and Marc Meeks (with additional input from lead actor Spade), but one wonders if the canine abuse was their idea or that of some studio honcho who realized the story was otherwise rather weak and uneventful. In either case, the latter description is accurate as this film has an incredibly lackluster plot, even for the romantic comedy genre where films are usually quite predictable and follow the same overall course.
As such, there's little doubt that Lila will discover Dylan's ruse at some point, get mad at him for that, and thus endanger the potential for a happy ending (although if you think it will end that way, you haven't seen enough similar films in your lifetime). Beyond that, the main complication is waiting for the afore mentioned dog to pass a missing anniversary ring (thus ensuring some gross out material) and a former beau who's so stereotypically obnoxious and smarmy that you've got to wonder just what's with these women who date such creeps.
Beyond all of that usual material, one's enjoyment of this film will heavily depend on how you feel about David Spade as a funny guy, leading romantic man and overall human being. I'll admit that I've never been a big fan of his style of wimpy sarcastic humor, and have found much of his starring work in films such as "Tommy Boy" and "Black Sheep" far more annoying than funny.
On the contrary, I've enjoyed his performance on TV's "Just Shoot Me" that -- although it's still just David Spade playing the same type of character -- works because he's in a supporting role and doesn't have to carry the show. Unfortunately he's signed up to do just that here and simply doesn't have what it takes to carry it off successfully (although I'm sure his die-hard fans will disagree but they're in the losing minority in that vote).
Sophie Marceau, on the other hand, could just appear on the screen, do nothing, and make at least half the audience smile just by watching her. Best known stateside for briefly being Mel Gibson's love interest in "Braveheart" and appearing in the more recent, but little seen "Firelight," Marceau has a great on-screen charisma that easily transcends her paper-thin role and makes her a likeable, sympathetic character.
Patrick Bruel ("Sabrina") effectively plays the stereotypical smarmy creep -- but nothing more -- while Artie Lang (TV's "Mad TV") is all too apparently present simply to fill the void of the wacky, obese sidekick character created when Spade's former film partner, Chris Farley died.
Overall, the film simply isn't that romantic or funny -- beyond the few animal-related jokes that some will find amusing -- to meet the requirements of this sort of picture. With an unimaginative plot that includes two stranded scenes of some elderly women (including Estelle Harris & Marla Gibbs) playing strip poker, and another where Spade has to sing a Neil Diamond song in public for an older woman's birthday bash that's presumably supposed to be funny but clearly isn't (why not have him do "What's New Pussycat" via Tom Jones -- the potential is far greater?) the film simply goes through the motions from start to finish.
Missing many possibilities for comedic complications -- such as Dylan's buddy constantly wanting the ring back and/or people arriving with similar dogs for a posted $10,000 reward, etc... -- the film also suffers from an ending that's not only too convenient and contrived, but also entirely unbelievable.
I realize that's an odd thing to say about a genre where the standard formula often deserves that same adjective, but it's a proper description of this film that too obviously hopes to mine some of the box office gold unearthed by "There's Something About Mary" but goes bust instead.
As far as the disc itself, the visuals are a mixed bag (with the letterbox version occasionally appearing out of focus, but the full frame version looking okay), the audio is decent but not particularly noteworthy, which also holds true for the supplemental materials (one trailer, cast & crew information).
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