I really love First Look Studios because they continuously put out good quality lower budget fare and Meet Bill is no exception to this. Its stand out cast includes Aaron Eckhardt who is the one who should get the Oscar Nod for Dark Knight, Elizabeth Banks who surprises me with her uber hotness and Jessica Alba who for the first time ever proves she is not just a talking set of breasts and can actually act. The premise of this fantastic quirky comedy goes as follows;

Bill (Aaron Eckhart) - a doormat if ever there was one. A man reduced to a mere accessory to his family by working a dead end job at his father-in-law’s bank and arguing about his overindulgent love for chocolate with his wife Jess (Elizabeth Banks) who loathes explaining her "friendship" with the local news anchorman (Timothy Olyphant).

But Bill's fate begins to change when he becomes a mentor to a self-assured boy (Logan Lerman) who engineers Bill’s recovery with the help of a cute lingerie sales girl named Lucy (Jessica Alba). Together, the trio confronts Bill’s hapless life with humor and energy while forcing him to capture his dream of being financially independent and self-confident. MEET BILL is a film about what it means to let go of your inhibitions and find the path you’re destined for.

Meet Bill is good on many levels but for me what made it great was that it was fun, comedic, dark, dramatic and not remotely cliche. You did not have the cliche cast which is so often done. You had a rich and vibrant story, and most of all you had an old idea done really creatively. The idea of a guy who is hitting his mid life crisis, finds out his wife is cheating and sets out to right his life is far from new. Meet Bill is the first film I have seen to do that both intelligently and with taste and humor. Its really a fantastic film that is quirky, intelligent and as noted a few times in this paragraph quite fun.

Aaron Eckhardt who is one of the best actors around shines as usual, but that is no surprise. When is Aaron not delivering an Oscar performance? Elizabeth Banks also proves why she is in just about every film that came out last year, but she also brings in one new thing.. her hotness. I never really looked at Elizabeth as 'hot' but she really delivers as the hot wife and will give all male viewers a new respect for pink panties. Trust me.

Jessica Alba rounds out the cast of the film and as you should probly have caught by the hint.. she is normally not my first choice. Sure she is hot, and yes she is popular but in past films ( Fantastic Four anyone? Deep Blue? ) she has shown that she is hot but just can not act. In this film she has very few lines and her role is quite shallow but I have to give credit where it is due and say she did deliver her role well and her sex appeal was secondary and not a part of her role. Very unusual to have Alba be upstaged by Elizabeth Banks for hotness but also quite refreshing.

Overall Meet Bill is a fantastic film and one I think that you should check out if you are into mature comedies that are not all about the 'har hars' and more about thought provoking writing, characters with alot of depth AND some comedy thrown in for good measure.