New in town is a an attempt at a romantic comedy starring Renee Zellweger and Harry Connick Jr. If someone had told me two hours ago that I would not find Harry Connick Jr and Renee Zellweger to be the perfect combination for this genre of movie, I would have not believed it. The lack of chemistry between these two otherwise solid performers is the single biggest problem for New in Town. After that, the lackluster script and plot along with the annoying upper Midwestern nasal sounding dialect are completely palpable.

In the movie's first scene you immediately realize how over-the-top bad the dialogue is going to be. Four stereotypical Midwestern women are sitting around a kitchen table dishing gossip and scrapbooking.

The entire script parallels the quirky character played by Frances McDormand in Fargo. The word "so" (pronounced sOOOh) is substituted for what would be an entire paragraph in any other movie. So many conversations end hanging on for several seconds after the word has been spoken that one would think the director is sure the audience won't get how clever the script is. The problem is, it isn't!

While the movie stereotypes upper-Midwestern dialogue and women in a very unflattering way, the bigger issue is the way it misrepresents the intelligence of our heartland's workers and the contribution of unions. The employees are shown in drone-like movements with very little interest in what they are doing. Apparently a talented local plant manager can't be found because a succession of managers has been moved in by "corporate". When the employees finally do get moving, they have to be led by the same Miami big-shot that was sent to bring them down. What would have been wrong with letting the workers show some American ingenuity and change their own destiny? Nobody in New Ulm can figure out to switch production to a low carb healthier product without the brilliance of some six figure high heeled size two executive from Miami?

Finally, and if this isn't all bad enough, the leading actors' performances fall so flat that the movie will be forgotten long before it comes out on DVD. Watching Harry Connick Jr was painful; apparently he has turned into a monotonous and quite frankly, boring, hack. You would at least expect that the hunk factor would have brought some interest to his on screen appearances, but it didn't. And what happened to Renee Zellweger, the girl that brought tears to my eyes at the end of Jerry Maguire? Her performance reminded me of Cuba Gooding's character (show me the money) before his transformation into the superstar athlete that he really was.

In the end all I ask for is that 1 hour and 36 minutes of my life back. So?