When someone even if it's your brother offers to fix you up on a date with the girl of your dreams, watch out because if it's too good to be true, it usually is. That's the position that young Ethan Hawke who worships his older brother Brian McNamara.
McNamara is however not studying to be a lawyer, but instead is a crook who has stolen from a Chinese gangster played by James Wong and who wants his goods back. What McNamara is doing by even giving Hawke his car, his fashionable wardrobe and even his credit card is set up his younger brother while he deals in relative safety. So that first date with Teri Polo is an experience not likely to be forgotten.
Mystery Date definitely has a few laughs in it, but throughout it I couldn't really get all that amused over the plight of Hawke and Polo. I mean this kid really worships McNamara and this guy is such a sleaze to take advantage of that. Kind of puts a damper on the humor.
Funniest performance has to be from Fisher Stevens who plays a psychotic floral delivery guy who McNamara stiffs for a tip and then goes berserk, taking it out on poor Hawke, the schlemiel. It doesn't make up for the overall weak plot premise.
7 out of 9 found this helpful