Things are going well with Carly (Cameron Diaz) and her boyfriend, Mark King (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). He is attentive and treats her like a princess. When Mark cancels on meeting Carly’s dad (Don Johnson), Carly breaks it off. At her father’s prompting, she shows up at Mark’s house dressed as a sexy plumber to help with his plumbing issues.

When Carly gets to the house, Mark’s wife, Kate (Leslie Mann) answers the door. Carly, realizing that she has been played by Mark, takes off. Kate shows up at Carly’s work and confronts her. Reluctantly, Carly gives Kate all the sordid details of her affair with Mark. Carly and Kate find themselves in the midst of an unorthodox friendship, commiserating over being lied to by the same man.

As Kate is torn over what to do about her failing marriage, she and Carly realize that Mark is cheating on both of them. The duo head to Miami to find out what Mark is up to and plot their revenge. When they get there, they meet Mark’s other girlfriend, Amber (Kate Upton). She’s young, hot, and not too bright. They welcome her into their weird circle and the three gang up on Mark to teach him a lesson.

Kate, who has more on the line than the other women, is still not sure what to think or do about her philandering husband. He is very charming, and knows how to work Kate. She must decide if she should forgive Mark and continue in her sham of a marriage, or muster up the courage to do something about it.

The Other Woman isn’t your typical chick flick romcom. It is more a story about empowerment for women in a male dominated world. With two comedy powerhouses like Leslie Mann and Cameron Diaz, it should be a slam dunk.

Leslie Mann plays the typical, if oblivious housewife. She is perfect in this role, which she has played several times before. She represents the mundaneness of marriage, and the level of comfort you reach when you’ve been with the same person forever. Cameron Diaz is a great foil to Mann’s Kate. She is smart, successful, and sophisticated. Both have their fair share of time on screen, working their own particular comedic stylings. Most of the comedy is slapstick, but there is a decent amount of jokes thrown in.

Kate Upton, new to the acting scene, still has a bit of work to do to get to the level of her costars. However, her character, as stated above, isn’t supposed to be as savvy as Kate and Carly. She’s supposed to be the hot, young fling. Little is expected of her character, so she is able to pull it off. Taylor Kinney, as Kate’s brother, Phil, is there to give the women in the audience the image of the ideal guy. He’s handsome, thoughtful, and, basically, not your typical a-hole guy. That’s reserved for Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Both guys are ok, but they could have been replaced with any other decent looking guy and no one would notice.

What surprised me was Nicki Minaj. She was unexpectedly funny as Carly’s assistant. She was a bit underused, given the quality of her performance, but it was a good introduction to her acting abilities.

The story isn’t exactly a new one. We have had several movies before that have a wife who thinks she’s in an ideal marriage, happy with all the boring, everyday activities, who later realizes her husband is looking for something more sexy and exciting, less sharing a bathroom in the morning. Then comes the revenge.

The women plotting their retribution is where the movie picks up. Most of the comedy, even the literal toilet humor works. But only because it is Cameron Diaz and Leslie Mann. If they had been replaced by almost anyone else, it wouldn’t have come off as funny.

A lot of the movie plays off the fact that the wife becomes best friends with the mistresses. While the act of the girls getting together feels a bit awkward, not just in the sense of the story, but the implementation of it as well, Mann and Diaz have good chemistry. There are a few times where the scene kind of trails off, and we are left with only a musical interlude as the women go from adversaries to the best of friends that feel like a bit of a cheat. However, since the movie is already just a little under 2 hours, it’s forgivable.

Overall, it’s a decent movie. It’s not great, but it definitely isn’t one of those movies that you feel you just wasted the last couple hours. Maybe I just expected a little more from a Diaz/Mann pairing.

The group of women I went with really enjoyed it. Again, not that I didn’t enjoy it. Perhaps it is just coming at it from a different perspective, having dealt with these types of guys.

It is a funny enough movie, that is obviously aimed more at giving women a chick flick comedy helmed by women.