'The Bounty Hunter' (PG-13)(out of four)

No amount of great hairstyling, tight shirts and skirts, and close ups of Jennifer Aniston's and Gerard Butler's baby blue eyes can save "The Bounty Hunter" from bagging itself.

At a tedious 110 minutes, the movie plays one-note and gasps for air harder than Aniston does after Butler, playing his usual sluggish bore of a man, stuffs her in the trunk of a car.

The premise of this "he said, she said, I hate my ex-husband/ex-wife" on-screen circus is two attractive New Yorkers who bicker, reconcile, bicker again, handcuff each other to beds, and travel to places like Atlantic City and a quaint country inn in his Oldsmobile Delta 88.

They are tangled up together and individually in situations that lead to gunfights, drive-bys , trash bags of money, and happen in places like strip clubs, casinos, tattoo parlors, horse tracks, Fourth of July parades, and Astoria bail bond offices. While it sounds complicated, none of it really is. The characters feel forced. While Aniston and Butler try to inhabit the roles of these two unlikely people, they never really get out of the gate.

Nicole Hurley (Aniston) is a reporter at the New York Daily News. Of course, she's a dedicated career woman and investigative reporter, we learn (she says it and so does her mother, played by Christine Baranski) who is trying to track down the real story on a suspicious suicide. In this newsroom, however, sexual harassment training must have been pushed back due to budget cuts since Hurley's parade down the newsroom's walkway is met with more than a few guys checking out her backside as she makes her way to her desk.

Milo Boyd (Butler) is a former police detective turned bounty hunter. There's some reason why he's not on the force anymore, but we're not sure. He nabs the mother of all bounties when he gets the assignment to track down his ex-wife after she's skipped bail. She didn't expect to be a felon, but couldn't pass on a good story tip. And although Milo thinks this will be the easiest five grand he's ever made in his life, Nicole is slippier than Milo's hair gel.

Aniston plays the uptight ex she perfected in "The Break-Up" although Sarah Thorp's script (she also wrote 2004's "Twisted" with Ashley Judd) gives her less to work with. Ditto, Butler revisits the loud-mouthed sneaker-wearing stud he was in "The Ugly Truth."

The supporting cast bumbles along aimlessly including "Saturday Night Live's" Jason Sudeikis who plays Stewart, Nicole's obnoxious co-worker and fellow reporter, and Carol Kane as a ditzy (surprised?) bed and breakfast owner. Siobhan Fallon Hogan as the bail bondsman's gum-chewing secretary chews scenery in her small role (she did the same as the hilarious secretary in last year's "New In Town") , but she does offer a jolt or two of hilarity.

"The Bounty Hunter" aims to be a crowd pleaser. And unlike the oh, so many camera shots of Aniston's cleavage peeking out of low cut tank tops, unfortunately, this comedy cup does not runneth over.