"The Ugly Truth" could have been a good movie. Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler are very talented actors, both with nice comic flair, and had good chemistry. Unfortunately, the movie was shoddily made and the script definitely needed at least one more pass to beef up the jokes.

Perhaps the most distracting part of the movie was the music. Most of it sounded like generic library music that you'd hear in a reality TV show and it was almost always too loud. All of the music was too loud, especially in the case of one dialogue heavy scene which had a song in the background with lyrics that were competing with the dialgoue. The sound editing also seemed sloppy. In the very first scene there was an obvious cut moment in which, in response to people arguing at her desk, Heigl's character blows a whistle to shut everyone up. You'd think they'd cut the music there was well but instead they let it fade out, somewhat deadening the moment.

The sound editing wasn't the only thing that was off. The pacing of the film wasn't sharp, some scenes just kind of ended, and the final fade to black seemed slapped on. 

In the end, most of the film had the feel of a rough cut of dress rehearsals.

All of that being said, the film still has some very funny moment and Heigl, Butler, and Bree Turner do some nice work, although Turner should not have been cast in this. She's a very pretty girl playing a desperate woman and it just doesn't work. Unbeknownst to me, I saw it at the same time as the friends and family of the object of Heigl's affections, Eric Winter (or maybe just his fan club). When his name came up, half of the audience hooted and hollered. I thought he did a solid job but he really wasn't given much to do.

So I can't recommend "The Ugly Truth". It's probably best to wait for when it hits cable (or throw it on the ol' Netflix queue for a rainy week of unemployment or something).