Serving Sara is a 2002 romantic comedy film directed by Reginald Hudlin and starring Matthew Perry and Elizabeth Hurley, with Bruce Campbell, Vincent Pastore, Amy Adams, and Cedric the Entertainer in supporting roles.
Joe Tyler (Perry) is a process server whose career has hit a schlump, and his boss Ray (Cedric) chews him out for taking too long to track down clients compared to his rival Tony (Pastore). But Joe is given a chance to redeem himself: an assignment to serve divorce papers to a socialite named Sara Moore (Hurley) who is vacationing in New York while her husband Gordon (Campbell) is back on his ranch in Texas having an affair with a mistress named Kate (Adams). Joe serves Sara the divorce papers but gets mugged while she heads home in a huff, and the two end up taking the same bus together.
While Sara vents to Joe about her marriage, Joe explains that because Gordon served her while he was in Texas, the divorce will be conducted under Texas law, which has very conservative divorce laws and judges, so Sara will likely get screwed. However, if she had served Gordon, the divorce would be held in New York where she'd fare much better. Sara offers Joe a deal: tear up Gordon's papers and serve him her own, and she'll give him a ten percent cut of whatever she gets from the divorce (which they settle on as a million dollars). Joe agrees and the two head out to track down Gordon — but once Gordon escapes the first time they find him and he lets Ray know Joe has flipped, the chase is on for Joe and Sara to track down Gordon before Tony can serve Sara.
Notable for being critically savaged (including making a couple "worst films" lists) and a Box Office Bomb, and also for tanking the careers of its two stars; the movie careers of both Perry and Hurley stalled and they only did a couple more films before Perry went back to focusing on television and Hurley's career just petered out over time.
Tropes used include:
- Ass Shove: Joe has his arm shoved up a steer's anus. All the way up.
- Black Comedy: When a furious Gordon threatens to "hang [Ray] out to dry" after telling him Joe is working for Sara now, Ray notes the uncomfortable undertones of "a redneck telling a black man he's gonna hang him."
- Chekhov's Gun: Joe notes early in the film that Ray forgets to reset his watch to the current time zone when traveling the country, causing him to date the papers he serves wrong. This is critical in the third act.
- Clothing Damage: Joe tears Sara's pants half off in order to free her when they get caught on a conveyor belt.
- Contrived Coincidence: The plot is built on these, with Joe getting mugged so he and Sara happen to end up on the same bus together, where Joe explains the simultaneously vague and complex legalese that becomes the driving force of the plot. And the twist in the third act happens because of Loophole Abuse since Tony didn't set his watch properly and put the wrong time on his papers.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Joe directly tells Sara once they fail to catch Gordon the first time that they're screwed, because he can just hop a plane and leave the country and Joe has no legal authority to serve him outside of the US. Lucky for him Ray doesn't think to give Gordon this advice, because Gordon stays in Texas. The film gives a Hand Wave that Gordon is trying to sell his company and wouldn't want to or be able to leave the country suddenly while he's in the middle of negotiating, but it's flimsy.
- Deep South: Gordon is a Texas rancher and a Cowboy who owns a ranch, and his mistress is a Dixie girl with skimpy clothing. There's also Tony getting blasted in the back with a shotgun on another ranch when he's mistaken for a burglar.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Kate flexes her breasts as part of her effort to convince Joe to let her in on the plan to backstab Gordon.
- Dumb Blonde: Kate has bleached blonde hair and Gordon is obviously not with her for her brains.
- Guile Hero: Joe's job is to serve legal papers to people who do not want to get them. By necessity he's good at bluffing his way past suspicious people, thinking on his feet, and using dubiously legal (or just down illegal) means to track them down.
- Hate Sink: Gordon is a foul-mouthed rancher who has been cheating on his wife for months (including on their anniversary, claiming he had to leave the country on business), orders her served with divorce papers while she's on vacation, and it's revealed he's holding off on closing a deal to sell his company until after the divorce is finalized, so his wife won't get a penny from the sale. Viewers will certainly be satisfied when Joe finally serves him, implicitly costing him millions in divorce proceedings to come.
- Hope Spot: Tony catches up to Joe and Sara and serves Sara Gordon's divorce papers all over. But then Joe notices Tony's watch in the photograph of the encounter and realizes he used the wrong time — the serve doesn't take effect yet, so they still have an hour to get to Gordon first.
- Internal Reveal: Joe realizes the reason all his serves have been taking so long is that Tony has been tipping off his marks, making getting to them a lot harder.
- Loophole Abuse: Due to Ray not resetting his watch when he photographed himself serving Sara the divorce papers, his watch is a few hours ahead of the actual time. As a result, Joe realises that he and Sara can still serve Gordon divorce papers first so long as they get to Gordon before the time indicated on Ray's watch in the photograph.
- Scary Black Man: Gordon's bodyguard is played by Terry Crews. He takes the job very seriously.
- Toilet Humor: Joe is forced to pretend to be a veterinarian and examine a bull's prostate, which involves putting his arm up a bull's ass.
