After witnessing a murder, estranged New York married couple Paul (Hugh Grant) and Meryl Morgan (Sarah Jessica Parker) are entered into the Witness Protection Program and sent to the tiny burg of Ray, Wyoming for their safety. Guarded by U.S. Marshall Clay Wheeler (Sam Elliott) and his gun-happy wife Emma (Mary Steenburgen) the pair slowly come to grips with small town life while at the same time rediscovering a love they thought they’d lost forever.

Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant shoot for laughs in Sony Pictures' Did You Hear About the Morgans?

The only mystery regarding Did You Hear About the Morgans? is why was it made in the first place. Indifferently written and directed by Marc Lawrence (Music and Lyrics) the movie sort of meanders around looking for a reason to exist, and while moments have undeniable warmth and humor as a cohesive whole this is one effort that comes up shockingly short. Very little maintained my interest, the fact I kept sneaking looks at my watch a damning clue highlighting just how below average this one ultimately is.

On the plus side, the film is hardly offensive or off-putting, and while Grant and Parker don’t share much in the way of chemistry they do have a few individual scenes that slightly tickled my funny bone. I also quite liked both Elliott and Steenburgen, and if anyone ever got the bright idea to make a movie (or, even better, a television show) based on their laidback law officers I’d watch that without any hesitation at all.

Other than that, though, there isn’t too much else to say. Lawrence’s script has no point, trading in jokes that are far too obvious and plot twists so tired they should have been put out to pasture eons ago. In addition, the climax is a bore, the whole sequence a series of idiotic contrivances that had me slapping my forehead in annoyed incredulity. I didn’t so much want the movie to end as for it to put its actors out of their collective misery, Did You Hear About the Morgans? not so much a waste of time as it is a forgettable effort sure to disappear so fast most people aren’t even going realize it was released to begin with.