dmckinleyp I'm not a New Yorker, but have spent enough time around there to get a feeling how people think. Clevernesss and fast-talk are the name of the game there, whether you're high-brow or low-brow. Two Girls and a Guy is an excellent product of that culture. The two girls are smitten with the fast-talking boyfriend, an actor, fantastically played by Robert Downey Jr. But they face reality after realizing he's been two- timing them. It's a shock at first, and this produces some of the best confrontational dialog in the movie, but his theatrical talent is overwhelming to them. They still want him, in spite of his lies. The wild card in the story is his mother's illness...is it real or just a way to avoid talking to them? You don't really find out until the end, because Downney is such a phony, you're not sure he knows what's real to himself, forget about the two girls. The ending is cathartic. Will he learn from what he has done and from the power of love and human forgiveness?

MBunge Robert Downey Jr. just saved my life. No, he didn't find me lying unconscious on the street and give me CPR. No, he didn't inspire me to get off drugs. And he didn't swoop down in a suit of high tech armor and rescue me from The Unicorn. I did just watch Two Girls and a Guy and his performance is the only thing that kept this movie from being slit-my-wrists unwatchable. This is the sort of film that makes otherwise normal people hate independent cinema. It is dull and pretentious and phony and is the sort of New York City storytelling that even Woody Allen finds a little too self involved. Imagine Kevin Smith without a sense of humor, Quentin Tarantino without a sense of irony and Michael Bay without a drop of adrenaline. That's writer/director James Toback in all his ignominy here.Here's the whole deal. Carla (Heather Graham) and Lou (Natasha Gregson Wagner) find out they've been dating the same guy for the last 10 months. When Blake (Robert Downey Jr.) returns to his insanely huge loft, they confront him and blather commences. They talk about hurt feelings. They talk about relationships. They talk about acting. They talk about Blake's mom. Carla and Lou talk. Carla and Blake talk. Carla, Blake and Lou talk. Blake and Carla have sex. Then they talk and talk and talk some more. But for all that chatter, the best scenes in the whole production are when Blake is talking on the phone to someone the audience can't hear. That's because only the awesome power of RDJ's talent is able to take this fake, unrealistic dialog and make it sound like something a human being would say.It's not that Heather Graham and Natasha Gregson Wagner are without talent. It's just that you don't need talent for this material. You need (trumpets blare)…TALENT!!!!!! Whenever Graham and Wagner open their mouths, they can't do anything but recite this crap. It doesn't sound like anything people would say. It's not structured like anything people would say. The motivations and behavior assigned to Carla and Lou by this script are as realistic and believable as the special effects in Plan 9 From Outer Space.Let me give you one example of what I mean and I'll only give you one for fear that remembering more of Two Girls and a Guy would send me into a self-induced coma of disgust and ennui. When Blake returns home, Lou and Carla initially hide. Then Carla emerges and slowly works up to an argument with Blake where she gets him to profess his unshakable fidelity to her. That's when Lou emerges from the closet to expose his romantic perfidy. But what woman is going to sit in the closet for the better part of 10 minutes while her boyfriend's other girlfriend talks to him? It's not Carla and Lou planned to trap Blake somehow. Lou just sat in the darkness for no reason until the Almighty Plot Hammer knocked her into the light. What kind of person could both control her own emotions and trust a near total stranger enough to let the situation unfold like that? And that scene is not the most contrived one in the script.Somehow, RDJ is able to take this dialog that even George Lucas would choke on and make it not only fun to listen to but sound like something which could come out of the mouth of a living homo sapien. How does he do it? I don't know. That's what makes him so great and should make all of us so thankful he didn't wind up dead in some alley from a drug overdose. But even RDJ can't salvage things when he has to interact with his less gifted castmates and their vain attempts to do something with this garbage writing.Do you want to know how bad Two Girls and a Guy really is? If, at some point in this movie, Graham and Wagner had gotten buck naked and engaged in a 5 minute long lesbian sex scene, I still wouldn't recommend watching it. Not even to fast forward to that scene. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

jmamgmt I can see through all of the nonsense of the plot and subtle nuances to find one of Robert's best performances as an insecure, trapped little boy with the talents of a genius. I can still see his face when he sees that he is busted, classic. He works the room like a charm, and has two women eating out of his hands, while at the same time screaming inside. I was not all that prepared for the hot and heavy oral sex, but it made the point. His performance was remarkable, his musical talents showcased with seamless beauty.....sorry folks but I loved it! I recommend it for those who want to see the raw Downey. This man is a true talent.

ashtree80 At my local video rental store, they have a special place for Two Girls and a Guy. It's a long running joke really. The clerk lets people rent it for free. They value their customers too much to let them waste their hard earned money on it.I was extremely surprised to see that people gave this movie a good review. Maybe someone can explain it to me. (or maybe the positive comments were jokes? Did people involved with the movie write them? Perhaps the mother of the director/writer?)Maybe I've just seen so many good movies that this one fails in comparison.