Angel Eyes

Take a credibility check. Jennifer Lopez is Sharon, a tough Chicago cop, who can't get a boyfriend. Instead, she vents her frustration on big black guys, smashing their faces on car bonnets while cuffing them. She's so desperate, she invites a loony-looking drifter, whose been stalking her, up for a drink.

The drifter is called Catch. He wanders around the streets, helping people. He's not Jesus Christ on a reconnaissance mission, but a trumpet player who lost his wife and son in the car crash that messed up his head.

"You have a nice smile," she says. Wow!

Nothing about this sugarcoated fantasy makes sense. The actors appear to be serious. Jim (The Thin Red Line) Caviezel, as Catch, gives a Method performance. You want to tell him, "Forget it, mate, noone believes you. Take a load off. Have fun."

Fun is off the menu in this movie. Catch has to come to terms with his grief before he can behave normally again. Sharon has to stop being so aggressive with everyone, especially her family. There's something dark there. A daddy thing.

Two lonely people, both damaged one way or another, struggle through an aural mist of soppy ballads to be together. Time heals. She's impatient. He responds by walking away. She pines. Her partner at the precinct says he can't go on pretending she has flu forever. "There's a city out there to be cleansed. We have a job to do."

One day Catch brings a stray dog back to his empty apartment. "This is Bob," he tells Sharon. A couple of scenes later, Bob's gone. Ring Animal Welfare. Where's Bob?

Something odd happens to her, as well. A drive-by assassin takes a pot shot at close range. She's saved by a bulletproof vest and has the mother of a black bruise next morning. A day later, it's disappeared.

Hold the front page! Lopez discovers magic cure!

Angel eyes? Another ballad, sung by the pop diva, herself. Not as Sharon. That would be out of character. Miss Lopez still has a day job. She should stick to it. As for Caviezel, he has the bone structure to be a star, but keeps picking intensely dull roles in feeble films.