Two If by Sea

The "Be Kind, Rewind" stickers on patrol car bumper stickers may well address the quick fate of "Two If by Sea," but there will be a lot worse comedies on the rack with greater reputations when that happens. [15 Jan 1996, p.31]

Two if by Sea, directed by Australian Bill Bennett, suffers from a symptom common to romantic comedies that begin after the couple have visited the haystack: There's simply no more sexual tension. Without it, you'd better be as good as Tracy and Hepburn. Read full review

Enjoyable, if slight. Read full review

Two If by Sea should have been titled "Two at Sea." It's adrift. Stars Sandra Bullock and Denis Leary have no chemistry together, and a perfectly good story is wasted on a really bad script. Read full review

There's terrific, spontaneous chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Denis Leary. Watching them bounce lines off each other is one of the biggest pleasures of Two If By Sea, a helter-skelter concoction that's part romantic comedy, part heist film and part New England travelogue...But Two If By Sea (which Leary also co-wrote) is a mess in the story department, with so many different elements competing for screen time, its stars' considerable charm ends up too diluted. [15 Jan 1996, p.5C]

Though the slow, obvious "Two If By Sea" probably won't do much to advance Bullock's standing as America's current sweetheart, it shouldn't do irreparable damage to it, either. [13 Jan 1996, p.21]

Only the sheer force of Sandra Bullock's apparently ingenuous charm keeps this sodden romantic comedy afloat. Read full review

The odd couple here is just as charmless, and their adventures are equally unfunny. When the filmmakers try to get sentimental about the relationship, you'll either be rolling your eyes or thinking about heading for the exit.

The saddest element of Two if by Sea is watching Bullock get dragged down in the drivel. Read full review

How bad could it be? Not exactly awful. But not funny, sexy or romantic either, which doesn't leave anything for this inert and oddly confused movie to do. Read full review

DENIS LEARY may be a funny guy when he's standing on stage spraying invective at a live audience, but as a movie star he has a lot to learn. Read full review

Two if by Sea has a drab, dreary tone that's due as much to the unenthusiastic performances as to the bland direction. If anyone was having fun making this film, it doesn't come across. Star Wars' gold droid C3P0 had more humanity than all of Two if by Sea's characters combined. Because I never cared about Frank or Roz, the "feel good" ending left me cold. And, to think, I wasted over an hour and a half in a theater with this movie when I could have been outside shoveling snow. Read full review

The dialogue has the crispness of aging lettuce, and the situations rely on coincidence, disbelief and a singular disregard for character. Read full review

Not bad in the aggressive, ambitious, over-the-top way that “Showgirls” epitomized. “Two If by Sea” is more like a zero, an inert lump of a movie with so little going on that fidgety viewers can sneak out for a hot dog or some popcorn and return without fear of having missed anything significant. Read full review

If you had never encountered Bullock’s patented brand of appealingly unglamorous, warm-eyed gal before this dispiriting production, you might think the star of Speed and The Net was nothing more than a Marisa Tomei knockoff. Read full review