In this, Angelina Jolie (Girl, Interrupted, Tomb Raider) plays Lanie Kerrigan, a self-absorbed and very ambitious news reporter for the local Seattle news station. She's vying for a job at a big news station in New York, so she's teamed up with skilled news cameraman Pete (Ed Burns  15 Minutes, Saving Private Ryan). One day while filming the local San Francisco spectacle named "Prophet Jack" (Tony Shalhoub  Monk, Wings), he reveals to her she will die in one week. After a string of his predictions come true, Laney begins to suspect the prophecy may be for real, and she's forced to analyze herself and discover if her life is as fulfilled as she thinks.
    I've seen this type of life-affirming movies before over and over, the most touching and heart-wrenching being "My life" with Michael Keaton, so I was curious to see how they might go about this movie. The movie is heart-warming and really tries to have a deep meaning and deep story about self-analysis, and begs the question is fame and fortune really all there is in life, or is there more? The character Lanie discovers that answer in the end, but for everyone the answer is never the same. Ed Burns, one of my favorite actors gives a great performance in this, and is the best aspect of the entire movie. He has a knack for making the most irrelevant of movies into something really good, and he helps this movie come from out of the dumps. His character is the most interesting in the movie, and I felt this would have been a lot better had it focused on him entirely. His character Pete, though gruff on the outside is very interesting and deep, as we explore his relationship with his son, and his life. He and Angelina Jolie have good chemistry and their love story throughout the movie is very engrossing and interesting.

This movie isn't as deep as it wanted to be, if it even wanted to be deep at all. Angelina Jolie picks one of the rotten scripts out of the entire flock. The story is nothing but fluff accompanied by Jolie's incredible figure, which I suspect was a diversion to keep people distracted from the fact that this movie is nothing but heartless dribble. What would have been a deep philosophical and heart-warming story about a woman seeking self-analysis becomes nothing more than a comedy that tries every time to tells odd jokes but fails miserably. The scenes where Jolie's character attempts to redeem herself and her life are laughable as she goes through a failed attempt to talk to her big sister Gwen (The hot Lisa Thornhill) whom she's always in competition with, and the moments with her father are so generic and trite that I never felt sorry for either of them and never cared much. There's even one atrocious scene that made me groan in disgust as she goes on a picket line of protesting bus drivers and starts a musical number as everyone begins to break into song singing "Satisfaction" from the Rolling Stones. Hell, even at one point the riot police begin tapping their feet... sheesh. I found this moment in the movie to be ridiculous and completely far-fetched and bone-headed. The script written by John Scott Shepherd and Dana Stevens is horrible, as the movie takes possible heart wrenching moments and completely misses its mark packing this up with horrible monologues and far-fetched situations. The scenes with Jolie's character as a young girl are possibly the worst of all, as the scenes look so rehearsed and lack any sentimentality or charm. And, as I guess would happen, the movie's climax takes the easy road out, and completely does a 180 going for the happy ending.

Formulaic, fluffy, mindless, and dull, this packs a punch with Ed Burns, Angelina Jolie, and Tony Shalhoub as the cast, but completely misses the mark when it comes to story depth. This is forgettable.