with his sophomore effort , she's the one , edward burns has made another movie about irish catholic brothers that do stupid things to the women they love . like his first film , the brothers mcmullen , this story is set in and around new york city , and stars mike mcglone and burns himself as the aforementioned brothers ( only two this time ) . also in the mix once again is maxine bahns , burn's real-life love interest , who again stars as burns's . . . love interest . this time around , burns once again plays slacker to mcglone's uptight business-oriented younger brother . burns's mickey , a contented laid-back cab driver , falls in love ( with bahns ) and gets married on 24 hours notice . this is ridiculed by his brother francis ( mcglone ) , who is experiencing relationship problems of his own in the form of a deep-rooted affair that threatens to break up his marriage . the two brothers' problems are linked together by the fact that francis's young mistress , played by cameron diaz , is mickey's ex-fiancee . after establishing these relationship problems and throwing in the love quarrels that burns's father ( " frasier " 's john mahoney ) is having with their mother , burns allows them to unfold in much the same fashion that similar events unfolded in burns's first film . first , the brothers talk about their relationships ; in the next scene one of the brothers does something impetuous or stupid ; as a result , in a subsequent scene , the brothers have to talk about how * that * affected their relationships . all of this makes for a lot of repetition ( the story about why burns broke up with diaz is brought up at least eight times ) , and inevitably leads to the point where one of the brothers' wives or girlfriends does something independently impetuous , stupid , or long overdue , at which point , the brothers are forced to talk about * that * and maybe get into a fight . as the movie approaches its inevitable end , though , both brothers are forced to scramble and try to make everything work out . despite its strong similarities to burns's first film , she's the one reveals that burns has obviously done some growing since then . on the whole , this narrative is much more complex than that of the brothers mcmullen . unlike his first film , the problems of the brothers are interlinked such that their inevitable brotherly dialogues always hold some sort of interest for both brothers . burns also displays at one point that his characters do not all have to be completely tactless . this is demonstrated in what is by far the film's most powerful and original scene , a climactic moment between burns and diaz in which burns the director displays a newfound ability to reveal emotion without words . unfortunately , this is only one brief glimpse of complexity and true movie magic in a film that for the most part rehashes the brothers mcmullen . 
