Did You Hear About the Morgans is not a good film. It isn’t an offensively bad one either, though, and falls into that rare category of just not being very funny without being aggressively terrible. It is a film mired in inertia, and in many ways it would be more admirable as an abject failure having just tried to push the boat out, but instead, this by-the-book treatment ensures that a talented cast is wasted on routine, fish-out-of-water material.

The film revolves around an estranged husband and wife – lawyer Paul Morgan (Hugh Grant) and estate agent Meryl (Sarah Jessica Parker) – who have been through a rough patch after Paul cheated on Meryl while claiming to be away on “business”. However, when they go out for a friendly dinner, they witness a murder, and are rushed into the witness relocation programme, being forced to live together temporarily while their separate housing is arranged. They wind up being relocated to a small hick town in Wyoming, where they are looked after by U.S. Marshall Clay Wheeler (Sam Elliot), and his wife Emma (Mary Steenburgen), while the assassin comes looking for them.

Whether you’ll be able to stand this film or just wind up bored by it truly depends on how much stock you put in Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker; Grant plays the usual bumbling Brit he has perfected over the years, and Parker basically retreads her Sex in the City role, but their personalities mesh well, even if the script is laboured and rudimentary. More discerning viewers might also appreciate the fun turns by Elliot and Steenburgen as the upstanding couple who get by on simple pleasures rather than mobile phones, high-speed Internet and lavish paycheques.

The problem lies inherently in the film’s PG-style treatment; there was great potential here for an edgy, almost Coen-esque neo-noir that would have reinvigorated two actors who are fresh out of new tricks, but indeed, it is a film entirely lacking in edge or bite. For a film revolving around a murder, it is curiously toothless: even as assassin Vincent (Michael Kelly) blasts away the security detail assigned to Meryl’s apartment, the film is so slight and mild that it managed to, indeed, escape with a PG-rating. A more violent and profane film that juxtaposed the ferocious absurdity of the situation with Grant’s typically retiring demeanour would have worked comic wonders, but alas, director Marc Lawrence sticks rigidly to formula, and the film suffers for it.

The fish-out-of-water concept is broad enough that it can invite innovation, but sadly there is none here; the film hearkens back to 2008’s New in Town, revelling in the same goofy attempts at humour (while admittedly being a bit more charming), depicting the differences between urban and rural settlements, but failing to do so in a way bearing any originality. Had the film been cast differently, I imagine it would not be so tolerable; the crux of withstanding it comes from the cast, who do fairly well with difficult (in that it isn’t very good) material.

There isn’t a surprising bone in the film’s body, and from minute one, it’s painfully clear where things are going. This isn’t so bad as long as the journey there is worth admission, but this is difficult to argue, because the film’s set-pieces – chiefly when the twosome climb inside a bull costume to evade their assailant – are at their best mildly amusing and at their worst (as above) quite embarrassing.

Morgans ends on a sweet note that feels more genuine than I expected, but through and through this is a tepid middle-of-the-road film that wastes a chance to be different with a dispiritingly innocuous family-friendly treatment. The occasionally hearty one-liner and the supporting performances do prevent it from being a total calamity, but it’s difficult to recommend this one.