Serving Sara (2002)

5% of critics liked it
(105 reviews)
31% of users liked it
(26,583 ratings)

A process server makes an unusual alliance with a beautiful but devious woman in this comedy. Joe Tyler (Matthew Perry) is a former attorney whose career went bust when he picked up some clients who turned out to be associated with the Mafia. These days, Joe makes his living as a process server, who… More A process server makes an unusual alliance with a beautiful but devious woman in this comedy. Joe Tyler (Matthew Perry) is a former attorney whose career went bust when he picked up some clients who turned out to be associated with the Mafia. These days, Joe makes his living as a process server, who presents people with legal papers -- papers they would usually prefer not to get. One of Joe's fellow servers, Tony (Vincent Pastore), is trying to weasel him out of his job, and has starting tipping off Joe's targets before he can deliver their papers in order to get Joe in dutch with their boss, Ray (Cedric the Entertainer). Joe, however, is able to persuade Ray to give him another chance with a high-profile client, Gordon (Bruce Campbell), a wealthy Texas cattle baron who has decided to divorce his wife and business partner, Sara (Elizabeth Hurley), in order to marry another woman, Kate (Amy Adams). When Joe presents Sara with the divorce papers, she is shocked by the news, which would cost her her half of the Gordon fortune. After Joe gets carjacked and finds herself on the same bus with Sara, she makes him a deal: If he's willing to take back the papers, say he never presented them, and serve a divorce petition to Gordon first, she'll pay Joe an even million dollars. Serving Sara became the focus of some unexpected controversy during its production -- first when Matthew Perry took a brief leave from the production to enter a rehabilitation clinic to fight an addiction to painkillers, and later when Elizabeth Hurley's former boyfriend, Steve Bing, accused Perry of being the father of Hurley's child (a charge both Hurley and Perry denied, and was proven false by blood tests). ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: PG-13, 1 hr. 39 min.
Directed By: Reginald Hudlin
Written By: David Ronn, Jay Scherick
Genres: Comedy

In Theaters: Aug 23, 2002 Wide
On DVD: Jan 28, 2003
Studio: Paramount Pictures

Critic Reviews

Hank Sartin, Chicago Reader
Romantic comedy ought to have some romance and laughs, but this extraordinarily flat effort has neither.
Christy Lemire, Associated Press
Crass and joyless.
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
The movie itself is a cattle ranch full of joke droppings and mooing shtick not worth stepping in.
Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter
A broadly played, lowbrow comedy in which the cast delivers mildly amusing performances and no farm animals were injured by any of the gags.
Laura Sinagra, Village Voice
With Vicodin-sharp timing, Perry wavers from glib to glazed, seeming to openly rue his miscasting as palookaville process server Joe Tyler.
Desson Thomson, Washington Post
[Hell is] looking down at your watch and realizing Serving Sara isn't even halfway through.
Felix Vasquez Jr., Cinema Crazed
This movie has many of the usual elements a romantic comedy has.
Urban Cinefile Critics, Urban Cinefile
Excruciating.
Scott Nash, Three Movie Buffs
Filled with artificial sweetener, and ultimately not satisfying enough.
Michael Dequina, TheMovieReport.com
Any effort anyone puts forth is obviously for naught when the movie's supposedly showstopping set piece has Perry stick his arm up a bull's anus to tickle his prostate.
Susan Michals, FilmStew.com
Hurley in particular is astoundingly awful.
Nick Rogers, State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)
If he so chooses, David Schwimmer could make a movie co-starring Gallagher and Yakov Smirnoff. It would have to be better.
Tyler Hanley, Palo Alto Weekly
One clever concept, several witty comedians, and many commonplace scenarios means Serving Sara will be served more at Blockbuster than at the multiplexes.
John R. McEwen, Film Quips Online
...Designed to appeal to moviegoers whose goal is to sit in an air-conditioned theater for 1 1/2 hours with their brains on 'pause.'
Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
Jeffrey Lyons says the film is "undeniably funny." That sound you hear is the entire world begging to differ.
Andrew Manning, Radio Free Entertainment
Here's a stretch: Elizabeth Hurley is a sexy English girl and Matthew Perry is Chandler in this senseless, surprisingly unfunny comedy.
Clint Morris, Moviehole
There's still something vaguely enjoyable about the film, as there has been with most of Matthew Perry's movies.
David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews
[Cedric the Entertainer] gives what just might be the worst performance of the year (and no, I'm not forgetting A Walk to Remember's Mandy Moore).
Garth Franklin, Dark Horizons
A truly lightweight forgettable piece of fluff which will barely make a blip either in the cinemas or on video.
Eric D. Snider, EricDSnider.com
Lame, limp, unappealing, incompetent, clueless -- these are the kindest words I can come up with to describe this film.

Read all 21 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Alice S

I like seeing Matthew Perry in this more belligerent smart-aleck role rather than the innocuous smart-aleck role on "Friends." Amy Adams is the true stand-out in a cast of much more famous and supposedly more seasoned actors. Her bimbo character is so committed. That slow… More
I like seeing Matthew Perry in this more belligerent smart-aleck role rather than the innocuous smart-aleck role on "Friends." Amy Adams is the true stand-out in a cast of much more famous and supposedly more seasoned actors. Her bimbo character is so committed. That slow wink. That breast-wiggling thing, which if it really is her and not some stunt breasts, deserves some kind of prize. Several plot holes: how is it that Sara gets on the exact same bus AFTER Joe when they are in the same place to begin with? How does Tony catch up to Joe and Sara so fast? If Tony forgets to set his watch back for CST, how does he make it on the plane in time?
Naughtia N

Serving Sara is a very easy going and charming movie. The two leading roles are played wonderfully by Matthew Perry and Elizabeth Hurley. Joe is a process server who meets Sara when he delivers divorce papers to her. Sara is chocked to know that her husband wants a divorce because she… More
Serving Sara is a very easy going and charming movie. The two leading roles are played wonderfully by Matthew Perry and Elizabeth Hurley. Joe is a process server who meets Sara when he delivers divorce papers to her. Sara is chocked to know that her husband wants a divorce because she thought they were happily married. The papers say that she is about to lose everything in the divorce and she does not want to let that happen. I thought this movie is enjoyable because of these two talented actors and their good chemistry. Allthough this was set to be a great movie, it wasn't nearly as good as I'd expected it to be. It's sad because the story has much more potential.
Deb S

The movie is about a process server called Joe (Matthew Perry) who is given the assignment to serve Sara Moore (Elizabeth Hurley) with divorce papers by her philandering Texan husband, but after he does it she convinces him to serve her husband instead and destroy her papers in… More
The movie is about a process server called Joe (Matthew Perry) who is given the assignment to serve Sara Moore (Elizabeth Hurley) with divorce papers by her philandering Texan husband, but after he does it she convinces him to serve her husband instead and destroy her papers in exchange of one million dollars. Cedric the Entertainer is hilarious as Perry's boss in the film and Amy Adams plays the girlfriend. There were some laughs (including one gross out scene where Joe has to pretend he is a veterinarian and help a bull out with a little "problem" he is having). "Serving Sara" serves up plenty of Hurley eye candy.
Jason C

It's a run of the mill comedy with a great cast. Matthew Perry didn't do many movies, but he was good at what he was type-cast to do. Bruce Campbell, Amy Adams, Vincent Pastore and Terry Crews all add to Serving Sara. It has Elizabeth Hurley. One of the most gorgeous women… More
It's a run of the mill comedy with a great cast. Matthew Perry didn't do many movies, but he was good at what he was type-cast to do. Bruce Campbell, Amy Adams, Vincent Pastore and Terry Crews all add to Serving Sara. It has Elizabeth Hurley. One of the most gorgeous women to grace the screen. Any movie with her in it is worth a star to its rating alone. The story isn't going to twist; it's there to keep the laughs going, and it's only kind of funny. If you're looking for anything with the slightest bit of depth, keep looking. Reginald Hudlin was a horrible director. He's doing TV now. That, and a script from the unbelievably bad writing team of Jay Scherik and David Ronn (I-Spy, Norbit, the Guess Who rewrite, National Security) and you get a surprisingly decent movie. If it's on TV and you just want something on TV, Serving Sara is worth a watch.
Janice :

Insanely ridiculous! Some funny scenes, but overall I'd say this is sleep-inducing, as much as sleeping pills!
FanGirl B

The only reason it didn't get 1/2 a star is because Bruce Campbell is in it.