Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum![]()
56
Adam
39
Adventures of Power
66
Afterschool
73
Amreeka
49
Antichrist
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The![]()
71
Big Fan
65
Black Dynamite
76
Bliss
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star![]()
76
Broken Embraces
70
Bronson
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
60
Collapse
82
Cove, The![]()
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The![]()
53
Dare
50
Defamation
67
Departures
70
Earth Days
85
Education, An![]()
55
Endgame
88
Fantastic Mr. Fox![]()
31
Fix
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo![]()
63
Horse Boy, The
74
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
43
Little Traitor, The
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
46
Love Hurts
84
Maid, The![]()
45
Mammoth
75
Messenger, The
55
Missing Person, The
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
48
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
26
Oh My God
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Red Cliff
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
65
Skin
41
Splinterheads
42
Staten Island
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
58
Storm
82
Sun, The![]()
49
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73
That Evening Sun
61
Trucker
49
Turning Green
83
U2 3D![]()
45
Uncertainty
67
Visual Acoustics
32
War on Kids
67
Way We Get By, The
65
Wedding Song, The
xx
White on Rice
59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
Woman in Berlin, A
43
Women in Trouble
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Catch and Release
EMAILPRINTColumbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 28 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 24 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama | Romance
Written by: Susannah Grant
Directed by: Susannah Grant
Release Date:
Theatrical: January 26, 2007
DVD: May 8, 2007
Running Time: 124 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for sexual content, language and some drug use
Starring Jennifer Garner, Timothy Olyphant, Sam Jaeger, Kevin Smith, Juliette Lewis, Joshua Friesen, Fiona Shaw, and Tina Lifford
After the sudden death of her fiancé, Gray Wheeler (Garner) finds comfort in the company of his friends: lighthearted comic Sam (Smith), hyper-responsible Dennis (Jaeger) and, oddly enough, his old childhood buddy Fritz (Olyphant), an irresponsible playboy whom she'd previously pegged as one of the lease reliable people in the world. (Columbia Pictures)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
Rough around the edges, but once you get used to the laconic pace, the plot grooves along nicely.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Take away the death and revelations that follow, and Catch And Release has the makings of a weekly half-hour network comedy--call it "Four's Company."
Read Full Review >TV Guide Angel Cohn
As soon as it pitches camp in generic romantic-comedy territory, it loses its intriguing edge and becomes one more predictable girl-meets-unsuitable-boy story.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
Although I find the term "chick flick" odious, I imagine that Columbia Pictures regards Catch and Release as exactly that, although there are signs that Ms. Grant was reaching for something more layered and subtle than the usual fairy-tale formula
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust
An oddly appealing, if innocuous, movie of considerable charm.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
One of those movies where the small pleasures stack up high enough to dwarf the disappointments.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
It's not a comedy-drama, really. It's let's-all-share therapy in beautiful Boulder, Colo.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
There's a funkier and more interesting movie in Maureen, a character played by Juliette Lewis. Maureen is a single mom, a massage therapist, and a dimwit California follower of every new-age theory out there. She's a nasal, needy wreck, and Catch and Release is torn between adoring her and making ruthless fun of her.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
So superficial and formulaic that even Garner's mega-watt grin can't completely save it.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Grant's film plays like a two-hour episode of "Friends" intercut with "Seventh Heaven." Those sounds you hear are wisecrack, heartbreak, heartbreak, wisecrack, wisecrack.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
As his wisecracking roomie, Smith keeps this contrived chick flick afloat, managing to steer past the kind of egregious product placement that would have capsized a less agile performer.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Because so little of it works, the film is disposable.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Garner is no more than serviceable as the tightly wound Gray.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Gray says she hates fishermen who catch and release: Getting jerked around hurts the jaw. See this movie and you'll know the feeling.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Making her feature-film directorial debut, Grant is going for an everyday conversational texture and a sense of life's curveballs. But the results wander and you never really believe them.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
I just don't know any chick who will make sense of this flick -- it's that blitheringly out of touch with present psychosexual (never mind feminist) time and space.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
An unfunny, undramatic comedy-drama that asks us to care about lying idiots making implausible choices.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
Won't make anybody’s "best of" lists a year from now, but it's nowhere near as offensive as some other examples of this moldy genre.
Read Full Review >Empire Tony Horkins
A film with a fishing metaphor for a title should have come with sharper hooks.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The film suffers from a style that settles for pleasant or touching at the cost of spontaneous or impassioned. Too bad, because Ms. Garner is a genuinely pleasing presence.
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Now it's just another romantic comedy, neither terribly bad nor truly great, buoyed along on currents of hope and post-traumatic good cheer.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Throughout, Garner retains a permanent grimace, as if persuasive acting can be achieved by contorting cheek muscles and pouting lips. It's not just depressing to watch; it's tiring. We want to tell her to relax -- for our own relief.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Catch and Release is not worth catching. Release yourself from boredom by giving it a miss.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Really, women drag their husbands and boyfriends to films like writer-director Susannah Grant's emotionally bogus Catch and Release and I feel their pain. They should get a free Boys Night Out pass every time they make the sacrifice.
Read Full Review >Premiere Ethan Alter
Time doesn't just slow down while you're watching Catch and Release -- it actually comes to a dead stop.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter
Despite their hackneyed characters, Smith and Lewis create a tiny spark and add a little humour. Without them, Catch and Release would be totally dead in the water.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
The chick comedy-drama Catch and Release may look bland, but it's not. It's worse. To rise to the level of blandness, it would need to have a few gallons of Tabasco dumped into it.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.3 (out of 10) based on 24 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
greg t. gave it a0:
"I don't know what others were expecting from this movie" was a common statement in the users comments... how about.. plot.. direction..screenwriting... ANYTHING AT ALL.. really pathetic...
PnArdy PnArdy gave it a5:
I would give it a five. A rather nice, but sometimes too artificial drama romance with Jennifer Garner (Alias) - a love triangle with an unnaturally happy ending.
Chad S.l gave it a5:
Gray (Jennifer Garner) never watched "When Harry Met Sally". If this fetchin' widow did, she would've recalled Harry's warning that there's no such thing as a platonic friend (if the woman is gorgeous), and would've found a more practical way to grieve over her fiance. One friend gets lucky, one carries around a torch, and one is too depressed to notice that a hot babe just crawled into his hospital bed. "Catch and Release" is sort of like "The Big Chill", but these thirtysomethings live the life on a full-time basis. When Gray sleeps with one of her male friends, we're supposed to feel like it's morally acceptable, because what's good for the goose (cooked goose, in this case) is good for the gander. However, the argument can be made that Gray would've hooked up with this guy in spite of her fiance's indiscretion. She's attractive; he's attractive; it was inevitable. Juliette Lewis, in her best role since she was Mallory("Natural Born Killers"), pumps fresh blood into "Catch and Release" just before these old friends become insufferable. The film missteps when it hurries the relationship between Gray and Maureen (Lewis). Before they broke bread, en route to amicability, there should've been a catfight between the two women to help convince us that Gray's loss was worth basing a whole movie around. There's not enough heartbreak (over her fiance's passing), or angst (over her fiance's affair) on Gray's part to make the audience happy for her newfound happiness and life.
Jennifer B. gave it a4:
Kevin Smith has REALLY let himself go. He's gone past the "fat Elvis" stage and will soon be up there with Brando around the time he did Don Juan. I felt bad for him throughout the entire movie and couldn't concentrate on the plot.
Kristy W. gave it an8:
I really liked this move. The characters made choices that weren't always neat and typical "movie" choices, but the type of choices people really make. Kevin Smith was really funny and Jennifer Garner and Timothy Olyphant had great chemistry. I really don't know why others didn't enjoy this movie.
Mike gave it a2:
[***SPOILER***] I did not connect with the characters. There was very little humor and the wrong guy got the girl. Unfortunately, in this case the nice guy finished last.
[Anonymous] gave it a6:
Cute movie... good for a date.
