For what seems like forever, Nicholas Sparks has been polluting the literary world with three-hanky books that inevitably get turned into soppy melodramatic fluff films that move the ladies and infuriate the men. The most “acclaimed” of these films is The Notebook, a film that didn’t have a big showing in theaters but has been a huge DVD rental for years. I myself haven’t seen it but I am privy to earlier films Message in a Bottle and A Walk to Remember. You may not believe it, but I didn’t hate either film. At the end of the day both were inconsequential, but they both remained pretty painless. Dear John does not get that same stay of execution…

Dear John is the victim of lazy screenwriting (though I’m relatively certain the book isn’t blameless). The film sports nearly as many montage scenes as it does fleshed out ones. Hence, this film is more padded than freshmen girls on prom night. But that isn’t the only problem the film has. No it gets worse…

John (Channing Tatum, playing a soldier once again) is on leave from his duties in the army and decides to kill time in the town he was raised in by a distant father (played well by Richard Jenkins). Once there, he has a “meet cute” with a young lady named Savannah (Amanda Seyfried) who’s spending her spring break with her family and friends. They start talking, she invites him to a party and before you know it they are soon going on their first date. She sees the good behind his quiet gruff exterior, even though none of us in the audience necessarily share those same empathic qualities. It’s established early that he was a bit of a hot head prior to joining the army, though we’re left to only speculate why that is. Anywho, he likes her because she can… well, I’m not sure. Is it because she can play the guitar? Is it because she likes to build houses for the underprivileged? Perhaps it’s because she sees the sweetness in his pappy that he lost sight of long ago. Incidentally, she can also see that he’s most likely dealing with autism, something John has been oblivious to growing up with him.

After we venture through a montage of the fun they have those short two weeks, it’s time for both of them to part ways. They decide to write each other and John promises that when his tour is over, he will come back to her and live happily ever after. But then 9/11 happens…

This movie wheezes through so many contrivances that you end up with so many hackneyed loose ends that quickly start piling up to the point of implausibility. John makes a promise to Savannah to come back but when we see that he’s about to go against his word to re-enlist, it’s apparent that this is done out of subtle peer pressure amongst his unit. Bros before hoes I suppose. Only we never get any real connection he has with his fellow soldiers. 9/11 was a time of change for everyone, but nobody had a gun to his head. This action leads to subsequent dramatic turmoil that leads to a foreseeable twist… and then to one less so. It’s that second twist that nearly saves the film from being bad to just being mediocre (like the two I’ve seen prior). It involves John’s father and gives Channing Tatum to act human. It’s invariably the Nicholas Sparks moment, and it’s a touching one. But then movie nosedives into a horrid and contrived third act that to describe here that would make me angry just to describe it. Let’s just say, for these two “lovebirds” to end up together, a perfectly decent person must die. Hate to break it to you, but yes somebody dies in the film. Did you expect anything less from Sparks?

Somewhere in this mess, there’s a decent film trying to get made. Perhaps a movie that just focused on those fleeting two weeks of love would have been a bit too precious, but it would have been more engrossing than what we’re left with. You didn’t believe in their love because there wasn’t enough time for the viewer to watch it flourish. Some may buy it because they are trained to by watching similar type films. You know you’re in trouble when you not only are indifferent if the main characters persevere in the end, you hope they essentially fail. Perhaps some don’t feel that same sentiment, but those people are hopeless romantics….with no discerning taste to boot.