Serving Sara

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Serving Sara
Serving Sara film poster
Directed by	Reginald Hudlin
Produced by	Dan Halsted
Written by	Jay Scherick, David Ronn
Starring	Matthew Perry, Elizabeth Hurley, Bruce Campbell
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	20 August 2002
Running time	99 min
Language	English
Budget	~ USD29,000,000
IMDb profile

Serving Sara is a 2002 film which stars Matthew Perry, Elizabeth Hurley, and Bruce Campbell. Joe Tyler (Perry) is a process server who is given the assignment to serve Sara Moore (Hurley) with divorce papers.

[edit] Plot

The movie opens with Joe serving a Mafia kingpin with jury duty a week late, and his boss Ray (Cedric the Entertainer) riduculing him for such while complementing his rival server Tony (Vincent Pastore) for serving multiple targets in record time. Willing to give him one last shot, Ray gives Joe the assignment to serve Sara with divorce papers from her husband Gordon, who is at his ranch in Texas with a mistress while Sara vacations in upstate New York.

While attempting to serve her, Sara is tipped off by Tony, thus revealing that the reason Joe has been failing is because Tony has been sabotaging his efforts. Eventually Joe does serve her, but is mugged and loses his car afterwards. With the two forced to take the same bus, they enter a conversation where Joe tells her that, because her husband had the papers filled out due to Texas law, she stands to gain nothing from the divorce. After finding out that the typical "half of everything" law would apply if the papers had been served under New York law, Sara offers Joe a million dollars to serve her husband and rip-up her papers. Although he'll lose his job, Joe agrees and the two set off to serve Gordon.

When Ray hears of this, he tells Gordon and sends Ray off to re-serve Sara. Gordon in turn hires a bodyguard to protect himself. Sara and Joe trail Gordon to his ranch, but Gordon evades them. Eventually they stay at a hotel where Gordon's mistress makes a new deal to Joe for half of his earnings ($500,000) in return for Gordon's location. Joe agrees, but the entire deal is a set-up to get Tony into their apartment to serve Sara. Furious, Sara kicks Joe out.

While Joe contemplates his lost fortune and budding love for Sara, he sees Tony's watch in the picture he took of him serving Sara, and calls Ray to inform him that Tony forgot to set his watch to the correct time zone, and thus the papers do not take effect until 3:15. With mere hours until they both lose a fortune, Joe and Sara trail Gordon to a rodeo, where they evade Gordon's bodyguard and Tony in a motorbike competition. With seconds to spare before 3:15, Gordon is knocked out by a pack of beer dropped on his head by Sara, and Joe serves him under New York law. The film ends with Joe and Sara at Joe's dream vineyard, where they taste-test (and spit out) Joe's first bottle before going inside to have sex.