Released in 2000, "Nurse Betty" stars Renée Zellweger as Betty, a lowly waitress married to a total jerk. She watches her favorite soap and fantasies about the hero-doctor on the show (Greg Kinnear). Meanwhile Morgan Freeman plays Charlie, the leader of a criminal duo (the other played by Chris Rock); as they chase the woman from Kansas to Los Angeles Charlie ends-up falling in love with her even though he's never met her.This is part dramedy, part road movie, part crime drama, part romcom and part black comedy. While it's rarely laugh-out loud, it's pretty consistently amusing. What throws it off is that it's such an eccentric mixture viewers don't know how to take it, especially when it throws in a fairly radical scalping sequence (and I don't mean scalping tickets). It helps, though, when you grasp that the movie's about Betty and Charlie and their romantic idealism of people they've never met.This is an offbeat movie that's half-good and half-meh. The "meh" reaction is mostly due to its curiosities; it might play better on repeat viewings.The movie runs almost 110 minutes and was shot in Los Angeles; Durango, Colorado; Grand Canyon, Arizona; and Rome, Lazio, Italy (closing scene).GRADE: C+

This movie is a roller coaster of a good time. The characters jump out at you in this unique awkward kind of way. Betty (Renee Zellweger) is sweet, abused and under-appreciated and she goes through what all undervalued people wish they could go through. She finds herself and the life she was meant to have through "tragedy and loss." The tragedy of witnessing a horrendous crime and the loss of her sense of serenity and calm.Morgan Freeman's character sympathizes with her in this way and is inadvertently drawn to Betty for it. The characters are made of the same lost and misused souls. The story line at first seems silly and just not thought out, but when the characters start to develop on their journeys you see the innocence and the loneliness that their lives are made up of. The two find themselves projecting the life they want into reality and when they are snapped out of it you feel a combination of relief and grief, and you hope that they are able to cope with the reality they are left with.That said, this movie is definitely not for everyone, but for those who appreciate and enjoy a comedy with deeper and more realistically sad under-tones this movie is worth a viewing. 7.2/10

Neil LaBute's uneasy blend of thriller and dark comedy is a queasy affair.LaBute doesn't have a light touch at all, which more than anything is what a film like this desperately needs. He begins the movie with a scene of intensely graphic violence, and it's hard to recover from it. You can't sit back and enjoy the film's comedic elements when you're not sure when or if something horrible is going to happen again.Renee Zellweger does her best, but she's in the hands of a director who's out of his element.Grade: C

Betty Sizemore (Renee Zellweger) lives her life through soap Opera "A Reason to Love" as a way to escape her slob husband and dull life. After a shocking incident involving two hit men (Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock), Betty goes into shock and travels to LA, believing that she is destined to marry the show's main character (Greg Kinnear).Nurse Betty is that rare thing, a lesser known film with an all-star cast and a fluffy Rom-Com plot that surprises with it's terrific script and spot on acting. Indeed, such a plot makes one question the R rating, but it's warranted all right. The shocking incident that sends Betty over the edge is a tad too graphic compared to the light, amusing comedy that is to come and feels like something out of a different movie, but at the same time it is necessary to believably show Betty's transformation into the doe eyed, lovable nut job she becomes.As we go along with Betty on her journey, director Neil LaBute works some extraordinary magic which makes the movie unique and high above your bog standard comedy of error. An example of this would be Betty's first meeting with her crush. She pours her heart out to him and he plays along, thinking she's auditioning for a part on the show. Even as we are aware of the ludicrous nature of Betty's ramblings, the music swells as she speaks, giving us, the audience, Betty's emotional perspective. We almost believe what she is saying, yet we understand that her mind is fractured. Whereas other filmmakers would try to accent the ridiculousness of the situation to wring every ounce of possible comedy out of the scene, LaBute is sensitive to his main character and treats her with the utmost sympathy and understanding.The banter between the hit men played by Freeman and Rock is priceless, the excellent script doling out clever line after clever line for them to riff off of. Freeman in particular is excellent as always, pacing himself as his character slowly and blindly falls in love with his own ideal of Betty, not even truly knowing who she is or what has happened to her. Aaron Eckhart once again shows versatility in the thankless role of Betty's no-good husband and he is almost unrecognisable. The other revelation here is Kinnear, whose portrayal of the soap's star is not too overcooked. There's a tendency to lay on the celebrity bastard cliché as thickly as possible, and Kinnear resists, instead imbuing him with a pompous yet restrained self importance, despite simply being a soap star.The soap opera is realised so well, it could almost exist. LaBute and co hit the nail on the head with this one and a good thing too. If the soap opera had been too satirical, a large part of the film would not have worked. To do a "Days of Our Lives" spoof as seen in Friends would have been the wrong move for this movie. The dedication to detail pays off, as the style and feel of the soap opera begins to bleed into Betty's reality more and more, while keeping with the overall unintentionally comedic aspect of the genre. The scenes on the set feel real, as opposed to some films in which the atmosphere feels so manufactured, you wondered why people who do it for a living can't get it right.The neat resolution of the final act, while being a tad predictable, is wholly satisfying overall. It's a shame that after LaBute directed this wonderful film, the mainstream came calling for him to direct the abysmal remake of The Wicker Man, a fine example of a man so totally above the material given to him. Unfortunately, one cannot absolve him of all responsibility.If you haven't seen Nurse Betty, it's something to discover. If you have, it's worth a re-visit. There is a charm to Nurse Betty that is infectious, even if it may not leave you thinking that much afterwards. A hidden gem nonetheless.