But this is a comedy flick, and so there's a twist to this nastiness: Brooke doesn't even want to break up. She's just hoping that the threat of losing her will snap Gary out of his beer-guzzling demi-coma. Twist number 2: Who gets the condo? Since breaking up is progressing, neither Brooke nor Gary wants to give up the condo they share, and are stuck together because neither can afford the mortgage on their own. Gary decides he'll hang out in the living room as his territory, and Brooke starts a campaign to make him jealous.

With a capable supporting cast - including Vaughn's usual mate Jon Favreau, Davis, D'Onofrio, Jason Bateman, Ann-Margret (blink and you’ll miss her), Joey Lauren Adams and Higgins – the film packs them in but under uses them in favour of more screentime for the leads.

Writers Jeremy Garelick, Jay Lavender, and Vaughn himself (who helped with the original story and produced) churned out their comedy, but the romance comes stillborn and the comedy barely exists, except when Vaughn is set free to do the rapid-fire wordplay that has become his M.O. All in all, this is not a truly vicious comedy of the "War of the Roses" variety… but it’s damn close.