Oliver (Ashton Kutcher) arrives at the LA airport on his way to NYC. As he gets out of the car, his sister razzes him with a line that becomes a running joke throughout the film. Standing at the curb, with his usual "awed Ashton" stare, he witnesses Emily (Amanda Peet) giving her boyfriend an unpleasant send off at the top of her lungs.

They’re booked on the same flight to NY and while waiting in the lounge Emily catches Oliver staring at her. Not to be outdone, she locks on his eyes as if she were an assassin. Clearly this is a woman you don’t mess with.

On board the plane a drink is dumped in Oliver’s lap when the person in front of him quickly reclines their seatback. He goes to the bathroom to clean up and as Oliver opens the door to return to his seat, Emily waylays him (pun intended) when she enters the tiny cubicle with him, and soon he is a member of the Mile High Club. Oliver has clearly not had sex before with a person he’s never met. No hello, no names. After they land and depart the plane, Emily and Oliver exchange a few words, without a full introduction, before they get lost in this city of 8,000,000 people.

Later that day (just like Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Affleck in the film "Changing Lanes") it comes as no surprise that Oliver and Emily just happen to bump into one another again. She’s about to meet her parents who want her to attend an event she has no desire to go to. Using Oliver as an excuse, Emily tells her parents (to his surprise) that Oliver very much wants her to go to the doctor with him to get the results of important tests, leaving the impression that it could be terminal cancer or a brain tumor. This gives the lascivious couple some one-on-one time when they are not having sex (making love is a definite overstatement).

The rest of the movie is give and take between Emily and Oliver in relationships with other people as they go back and forth in the game of wanting each other. When one of them is ready the other is committed to a relationship with someone else. There’s also the struggle for each of them to find their career paths and how to include that in their self-identities and personal relationships. There is some nudity for both Kutcher and Peet, which is romantically corny, and some will feel it’s more R than PG-13 rated. But then, it’s no more than you have seen on the TVs "NYPD Blue."

The expectancy in the movie is that by its end they will be together, but just how will it happen?

A little of Ashton Kutcher goes a long way. He’s a pleasant presence but at this time, for us, he cannot carry a full-length film. Perhaps what we don’t quite connect with about him as an actor is that he always seems to be in pout mode, appropriate for a teenager going through puberty. Fortunately, in recent outings, he teamed up with Bernie Mac ("Guess Who") and here Amanda Peet ("Melinda and Melinda"). Although we enjoyed the film, it could have had more of the impact of "Fever Pitch" if the casting had been better. Also, it could have been a little shorter. The story was long in the tooth by the time it passed the 90-minute mark.