Michael_Elliott Overnight Delivery (1998) ** (out of 4) Wyatt Tripps (Paul Rudd) isn't your typical college student. Instead of drinking beer, getting high and on the prowl for women, Wyatt is a gentleman who's madly in love with his girlfriend (Christine Taylor) who he's known since high school. The two made a commitment to hold off on sex until marriage but after a dreadful phone call Wyatt begins to think that she's cheating on him. Entering the picture is Ivy Miller (Reese Witherspoon), a former stripper with the heart of gold.Wyatt pours his soul out to Ivy but she isn't the type of girl who believes in love. She tells Wyatt that the only way for him to get back on his feet is to regain his ego. She suggests that he sends his girlfriend an overnight letter telling her that's he's the one cheating on her and wants to break up. Wyatt does this but the next morning he learns that the girlfriend really isn't cheating so he and Ivy hit the road trying to intercept the letter before the love of his life gets it. Along the way Wyatt and Ivy learn more about one another and I'll let you guess what happens.Overnight Delivery is just one of many romantic comedies where the first eight-minutes we have the main characters fighting, screaming, fighting and doing more screaming yet in the final five minutes we get the typical ending, which we've come to expect from this type of film. A movie like this depends on liking the main characters, which is half the problem with the film. The other problem is that we've seen this way too many times so there's so surprises along the way and in the end we're left with an unoriginal film that doesn't have much of anything going for it.Paul Rudd is best known for his role in Clueless but I've never really cared for him in anything. I'm not sure how much direction he was actually getting but the performance is very weak because this guy has no identity. One minute he's acting like a mature gentlemen yet the next minute he's acting like a buffoon. Rudd fails on both levels because he's good guy act comes off as hokey and all his jokes come off without any laughs. Reese Witherspoon is the best young actress working today and she does the most with what the screenplay offers. She's pretty much just along for the ride but she's at least easy on the eyes and brings that certain charm of hers to the film.Although Witherspoon is very good in the film she has no chemistry whatsoever with Rudd, which just makes the film even harder to get through. The so called best of these types of films usually at least have charming leads but that's no the case here and I'm going to guess that's why this film got a limited theatrical run before hitting video. The screenplay isn't fresh, isn't sharp and it really doesn't contain anything we haven't seen before. There are a few dirty sexual jokes but these come off very badly and you'll just be sitting there rolling your eyes. Overnight Delivery isn't the worst of its kind but outside of Reese there's really nothing to watch.

jboudine I watched this movie last week late night on some random network, the reason being that I was intrigued by the fact that both Paul Rudd and Reese Witherspoon (two great actors) were in the movie and yet I have never heard of it. From the beginning, my suspicions were that the movie would be awful, and sadly, those were confirmed within the first 20 minutes. The myriad of problems in this movie, the ridiculous plot, unrealistic dialog, incomprehensible development/dismissal of characters (e.g. Wyatt's friends), and sub-par acting have reserved a special place for this movie in Video Hell.I'll start with the plot, the premise of which was promising, but ultimately better conceived in Road Trip (not the greatest movie itself but still somewhat entertaining). Look, I'll buy into suspension of disbelief, but to expect me to believe the whole scenario where Wyatt and Ivy decide to send the photos/condom to his girlfriend borders on insulting.In the same vein, the dialog sounds like it was written by someone who has never been a college-aged kid, and as a stripper, Ivy's dialog was written very poorly as well.Concerning character development, both Wyatt's friends and Christine Taylor's part were severely under-developed. For instance, Wyatt's friends appear to be a major part of the movie for the first 20 minutes, only to be unceremoniously dropped for the remainder of the film.Furthermore, the movie inexplicably bills Christine Taylor as being a main character, yet she is only on screen a grand total of 20 minutes as well. I can only attribute these problems to poor editing, confirmed by the fact that the movie was originally supposed to be 30 minutes.Finally, I get the feeling that pretty much every big name actor in the movie phoned it in to an extent. Paul Rudd spent the majority of the movie trying his hardest to be John Cusack on crack, which is annoying for the first half of the movie, infuriating for the latter half. This from a guy who has been a scene stealer in pretty much every other movie he's been in. Reese Witherspoon spends most of the movie with an "I need to fire my agent for getting me into this" look, and most of the other characters fail to bring laughs, although granted, they didn't have much to work with in the first place.The bottom line is that "Overnight Delivery" is not a campy-yet-funny movie along the lines of "Heavyweights" (which has the same IMDb rating ), it's a poorly written piece of drivel which should be used as an example for How-Not-to-Make-a-Movie. If nothing else, I left the movie having a newfound respect for the high-profile names that survived this travesty and went on to bigger and better things.

nehampton I like watching a movie without expectations, but this love-comedy was well worth the time. I watched this movie only because it had Reese Witherspoon in in, who I am becoming more and more impressed with, particularly in comedies. She steals the scenes in this movie, and is the catalyst for all that happens. It is a surprisingly funny and good movie. Reminds me of Blood Simple (for all the weird things that keep happening) and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (for all the weird things that keep happening). Not a well orchestrated movie, because things are somewhat disjointed (she takes him to the airport, but drops him off at the downtown convention center (reality mistake) and no reason for the cops to be there as they attempt to leave the restaurant after not paying (movie mistake)), but the acting is good and when the writing is right, it is very good.

Cihan Vercan (jeehunwherjun) After Freeway and Fear movies the leading role actress Reese Witherspoon shines with a joyful, extrovert and really charming character performed as Ivy Miller. Acting with Paul Rudd performed as Wyatt Trips, she is the girl striving for making her Prince charming aware of her. Christine Taylor performed as Kimberly is a famous cheerleader in their campus, dating with Wyatt. One day, Wyatt turns very jealous by a message from her and then starts to worry about his life as if it is coming to an end. Wyatt's friends help him forget her if she's cheating on him. That night in a dance club, a stripteaser girl named Ivy Von "Trap", alters Wyatt's philosophy of life through destroying his friends' ego. There comes a fight between Ivy and Wyatt's campus gang. This bonds Ivy and Wyatt as friends, after Wyatt forsakes his friends at the fight. Ivy tells the secrets of relations and the nonexistence of love to Wyatt by use of a cult speech. Then it becomes hard for Wyatt to realize the love of Ivy, if he can't rescue his heart from loving Kimberly hopelessly. Then by time a wonderful adventurous love is getting started by Kimberly's letter from Memphis. How a puzzle is this, you can't believe. While Wyatt wants to stop a package from delivery full of Ivy's ideas of good-bye speech that has been sent to Kimberly, there starts the road trip from Minneapolis to Memphis. At the end on the Valentines' Day in Memphis which one will be chosen by Wyatt, Ivy or Kim ? At the ending Wyatt becomes Tarzan to stop the delivery guy, and also becomes a prayer: "Dear God, I swear that I will never send any more package via Overnight Delivery again!"