The center of this romantic comedy is follow-the-rules Frank Allen (Ryan Reynolds).  Frank is the celebrated author of ‘The Five Minute Efficiency Trainer’ and a lecturer of corporate self-improvement courses.  The trouble starts when his wife, Susan (Emily Mortimer) sets his watch forward 10 minutes, thinking that this has given her husband more time.  But the 10-minutes tardiness spurs a series of events that spirals Frank’s life out of control.  He finds for one that his daughter, Jesse (Matreya Fedor) is not his while Susan mistakenly believes Frank to be cheating on her.

But for a film bent on proving that rules should not be adhered to and that a certain amount of spontaneity is needed in life, CHAOS THEORY is strangely clichéd following all the standard rules in the romantic comedy genre.  Take the main storyline:  Frank’s life is too strict, almost losing his wife as a result; he learns his lesson to bend the rules a little and gains back the love of his wife.  The distractions at least, in the form of Frank’s best buddy, also called Buddy (Stuart Townsend) and his flirt, the so-called house wrecker ***censored*** (Sarah Chalke), are at least more interesting than the main characters or story-line.

CHAOS THEORY should be funnier and more energetic with a comedian, instead of Ryan Reynolds in the title role.  The movie has sufficient plot twists and turns going for it, but that is insufficient to hold the audience’s interest throughout the film’s running length in a time where Hollywood spurns out dozens of romantic comedies each season.  CHAOS THEORY would have been the ideal Albert Brooks comedy.