I've never been served a subpoena, but I can gather that it's not one of the more pleasant things in life. You might compare it to being brought to the Jerry Springer show by someone you love. It's all but certain that you're not going to like what you hear.

Process servers have to be sneaky in order to dupe their unsuspecting targets, and that is precisely what Serving Sara tries to accomplish. It will have you believe that a movie about greed, lame infatuation and getting what you want no matter whom it hurts is a romantic comedy. The truth is that director Reginald Hudlin's star-driven stinker is about as fun as I imagine being served would be.

Process server Joe Tyler (Matthew Perry) has been given the assignment of serving divorce papers to Sara Moore (Elizabeth Hurley), who convinces him to work for her instead. She wants him to serve her wealthy Texas tycoon husband (Bruce Campbell) first, so that she will have a chance at securing half of his 20 million dollar fortune. Sara offers Joe one million dollars of her divorce settlement for this service. He accepts, and the wild goose chase begins. At the same time that Joe and Sara are trying to serve her husband Gordon, one of Joe's dopey co-servers Tony (Vincent Pastore) is attempting to serve Sara. And yes, you guessed it! Joe and Sara eventually realize that they love each other!

For a "comedy" that is so driven by the antics surrounding the task of process serving, it's strange that its first spoken words are by Perry telling us that his "job sucks." He's right, and the movie isn't much better. It lumbers on and on forever without even the mildest chuckle, and there is really nobody to blame but the screenwriters. After all, both Perry and Hurley have each had successes in the comedic arena.

You can't convince me that Perry, the genius behind Chandler Bing on Friends, is at fault for the lack of class, timing and shameless dialogue throughout. He almost overdoes it to compensate, making every moment tense and uncomfortable.

Hurley is great to look at, but even if she were wearing nothing at all it wouldn't help disguise the many blunders that plague this atrocity. The script stinks, so Hurley prances around in the skimpiest outfit that PG-13 will allow to save the day. Nice try.

The romance between Perry's Joe and Hurley's Sara is clichéd and forced, exemplified by bland love songs springing up whenever they have a "moment." The script even has Joe tell Sara that her husband is a fool because she's so "beautiful and intelligent." Yet this is the same woman who gets a free motel room by flashing the guy at the front desk.

Ultimately, you'll feel apathy toward the characters. Sara chastises her husband for his greed, but becomes a hypocrite when she literally throws Joe out on his behind the moment she thinks he's bungled her scheme to get half her hubby's fortune. This is after they've shared their first not-so-steamy kiss. Joe's just as big a hypocrite. Early on, he tells Sara how he did the right thing and gave up a career as a wealthy defense attorney because he was working for the mob. But that doesn't distract you from the fact that he's just double-crossed his firm for a quick million bucks. The pieces are all picked up by the end, but by then you'll wish you had made that trip to refill your popcorn.

Much of the picture was filmed in Texas, and being a native Texan I'm appalled at the way we are depicted. Maybe I'm being sensitive, but every Texan portrayed in the movie is a gun-totin,' ignorant cowboy with a thick hick accent. Campbell's character even blares honky-tonk music in his car, a stereotype that is so outdated that it's possibly the movie's most desperate and insulting attempt at a laugh.

Greed is the name of the game in Serving Sara, and the only logical reason I can think of for such a talented group of actors being associated with this garbage.