I was in the mood last night to watch a really thoughtless chick flick so I scrolled endlessly through Netflix Instant Streaming (I was really hoping for Riding in Cars with Boys), and settled upon Home Fries.

Home Fries is a simple movie that doesn’t require you to actively pay attention to follow the plot or try to figure out what will happen next; just pure mind-numbing entertainment. It got pretty awful reviews when it came out in ’98, as I recall, and it’s just something that just made me want to jab my eye out, but it just doesn’t leave you with any sort of feeling.But I did find it under the “Romantic Comedy” section of Netflix, so what did I expect?

Sally Jackson (Drew Barrymore) is working at the Burger Matic as a drive through attendant so the customers “don’t see her pregnant belly.” When the movie unfolds she is serving food to her baby daddy, for lack of better terms, Henry (Chris Ellis), who is trying to coerce her into a ride home. She has clearly recently found out that he’s married, and states she doesn’t want to be with him, but rather just wants a baby for her child. Unbeknown to her, this is the last time she’ll see him as he’s about to be literally scared to death by two guys in a helicopter, the whole thing playing out as interference on Sally’s headphones.The two guys who killed Henry turn out to be his stepsons, Dorian and Angus Lever (Luke Wilson, Jake Bussey), who had been put up to it by their mother, Beatrice (Catherine O’Hara). She has Angus under her thumb and will act at her will, using her sadness to manipulate him, but it seems Dorian has wised up and won’t just jump when she snaps her fingers. He merely wanted to scare him a little bit, as they had just found out he was cheating on her, but Angus wanted him dead so as luck would have it, he had a heart attack and died. They knew their interference leaked into headphones worn by someone else, so they make it their mission to cover their tracks and ensure no one knew Henry was killed. So clearly, the answer is for Dorian to get a job at the Burger Matic, where he falls for Sally before figuring out she’s his step-father’s mistress.

Hands down, Drew Barrymore can’t really act. She’s good in some things, but she’s pretty bad in Home Fries. Her accent is awful and not believable. But she has a likable enough character that you let it slide. This is just a romantic comedy, after all. I wish they would have gone more into their setting in the south, but it didn’t take away from the story so I’m not counting it against them. Catherine O’Hara had the best performance in the movie as the melodramatic weeping willow. All in all this movie isn’t the worst, but it’s just good for popping in on a Friday night when you just want to lounge and not have to think about plot or character development, and that’s just the place it played in my week.