(Rated R, 93mins.) Josh Hartnett moves off the battlefield of war (Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Dawn) and moves into a new battlefield: sexual abstinence. The story is of a young Matt Sullivan (Hartnett) who has disastrous relationships so he decides to give up sex for of all things, Lent. No form of sex for 40 days. (When I was a kid we gave up candy.) Giving up sex would be easy for Matt, but then we wouldn’t have a movie (shucks), so Erica (Shannyn Sossamon) walks into his life this particular holy holiday. The movie is about concocting excuses of why he can’t consummate. And, of course there’s the chain of office pools that he’ll fail. His boss (Griffin Dunne) is a hoot of a dog hitting the bathroom stalls, clutching bottles of oil and girlie mags. But, much like director Michael Lehmann’s “The Truth About Cats and Dogs” it fails to sustain its single joke. Unfortunately when Matt is finally able to climax the movie becomes anti-climatic. Oh well. Maybe he should have considered sustaining with candy like the old days.
