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In How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Kate Hudson’s character did crazy things to get rid of a man. But in Watching the Detectives, the crazed, sometimes psychotic acts are meant to keep him.

Noir genre addict Neil (Cillian Murphey) is a vintage film fanatic. He owns Gumshoe Video, a store that rents mostly VHS tapes of classic films. He and his friends make a mismatched band of film geeks, debating never-heard-of Japanese films for fun.

In walks Violet (Lucy Liu), a woman who claims she has never rented a movie in her life. She is adorably dorky - and a little scary. She toys with Neil and eventually, they go on strange dates that make Neil fall for Violet - and become wary of her at the same time.

See, Violet is a prankster. She feeds Neil and his friends a stolen picnic meal at a park and gets Neil to rob the illegal gaming operation where she works. You discover at the end that she pranks him badly to keep him interested. After all, he looses interest in his girlfriends after about a year, because they can never compare with the screen sirens he spends every waking moment with. She wants to be fresh and fun and mysterious for him. I think, if they stay together, he will die of a heart attack by 30.

Detectives is somewhat charming, though some of the craziness was a bit much for even the most adventurous someone. Seriously? If I were a guy and a woman I was dating had a man tie her to a chair and pretend to kill me because he’s in love with her, I’d bolt. Fast. Of course, this is 21st century romantic cinema, so common sense is right out the door.

Neil is a regular guy who does small pranks on his girlfriends, but nothing as crazy or dangerous as what Violet sets into motion. He simply wants to get a rise out of them, see if they are alive, how they react. At the end, Neil figures out that Violet is like him, only more bold in her psychosis. The script is too light to delve deeply in this symbiotic link, which was a little disappointing. This connection was tied in too quickly and without flare at the end. Neil’s crying after he breaks up with Violet is just…wrong. It was not funny and got old really fast. Still, Cillian Murphy overall did a great job at playing the lovesick, noir film-obsessed not-quite-geek.

I can safely say I’ve never seen Lucy Liu play such a dork, or act as outlandishly as she does in Detectives. It was different; fun, sometimes overwhelming, but she seemed a natural at playing Violet. (That should terrify her.)

Detectives is an OK watch and some guys might even get a laugh or two out of it - or toast their girlfriends for their saneness. It’s a lighthearted and surprising romantic adventure that will appeal to some chick flick fans.

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