Raoul Bova vs. Olivier Martinez
Battle of the Eurotrashy Diane Lane Seducers

I used to think that not every man in every sunny European country was totally hot. It only seems like they are, I thought, because the vast majority of the ones we in North America see in movies and on TV represent the most breathtaking cream of their countries' crops, like how they used to sort through the coffee beans in those old Nabob ads: only the hottest 1% of European guys is found fit for export. (The hottest 1%, plus Gerard Depardieu. Whatever.) And, you know, I haven't travelled, so I didn't know. Then my sister spent six weeks in Italy and came back reporting that, in fact, the 1% we see is actually pretty indicative of the majority of the population. As proof, one of the souvenirs she brought me back was a fundraising pin-up calendar of regular Italian men -- not models -- all of whom were, really, just lovely. And, if they weren't models, what was these men's profession? Oh, well. They were priests. PRIESTS. Hottie Catholic priests! I can barely remember the last time I saw a good-looking fireman, and meanwhile, in Venice, women are getting their eye candy at Mass. Why do I live in this stupid country, again?

So: European men are attractive. Raoul Bova and Olivier Martinez are European men. Therefore, Raoul Bova and Olivier Martinez are attractive.

They're himbos; the whole point of their careers is that they show up and, after a decent interval, take off their clothes. (The decent interval is optional.) The first time most of us saw Bova, in fact, that's all he was doing: lolling about in bed, covered only by a flimsy sheet, and then wandering through his bedroom shirtless in his Gap jeans, walking around New York in the rain in his Gap jeans, jogging and smiling in his Gap jeans. It was, like, the best movie ever. It certainly was less tiresome, and featured much less dull real-estate-themed filler than the next thing most of us saw him in: the travel porn known as Under the Tuscan Sun. Bova's job in it is multifold: (a) he must charm Diane Lane into sleeping with him (and thus penetrate the bitter shell she's surrounded herself with since her divorce) by (b) embodying every Italian stereotype ever, such as a laissez-faire zest for life (demonstrated by a fondness for both food and the erotic company of a lady he just met). He must make a refreshing change for Lane's character (whose name is who cares she's just Diane Lane), after the stuffy intellectual writer husband who screwed her over, since Bova's character (whose name is whatever he's hot) cutely bungles English idioms and wears a cream summer suit and gives Diane Lane a ride on his moped and tells her he's going to "make love all over" her, like she's going to put up any kind of protest. He turns out to be a cad, but you don't even care; all the movie makes you think is, "Well, he's Italian -- it's what they do," and also possibly, "DAMMIT! I haven't been to The Olive Garden in like FOREVER!"

But of course, Raoul Bova wasn't the first stray bit of Eurotrash to blow up Diane Lane's skirt; before him, there was Olivier Martinez, her screwing partner in the surprisingly un-terrible Unfaithful. In Sun, the divorced Lane needs a hot young foreign lovah to heal her hard, broken heart after being disappointed in love; in Unfaithful, she seems just to be bored, as anyone would be who was married to the bespectacled, sweater-vest-wearing Richard Gere. A chance encounter puts her in Martinez's path, and not long afterward, they're totally doing it all over New York (seriously, everywhere: at the movies, in a restaurant booth, in the ladies' room at a coffee shop, and presumably also in the butt, Bob, because why even have an illicit affair if you're just going to do it the regular way?). The filmmakers had a challenge with this script in that Diane Lane's lover had to be so irresistible that we could imagine her becoming addicted to him. He has lovely, pillowy lips, cheekbones for days, and an apparently quite inventive sexual imagination. He's a treat. Diane Lane tries to put the brakes on, but she can't -- not when she thinks her milquetoast husband suspects, not when she forgets to pick up her kid at school because she's too busy fucking, and most decidedly not even when she realizes that she's not the only bored Connecticut housewife Martinez is sleeping with, because obviously if the other woman is attractive to her, the next logical step is going to be a threesome. When she makes a special trip to break up with him, her rage is instantly sublimated into horny-tude instead, and before you know it she's bent over the railing in the hall outside his apartment, and I don't need to say more, because we've all been there before, haven't we?

Having both cut their teeth (literally) on Diane Lane, Martinez and Bova are free to start playing less memorable roles as token Europeans in male-oriented action dramas, much as Peter Stormare (Armageddon), Stellan Skarsgard (Deep Blue Sea), and Jean Reno (Godzilla), among others, have done before them. Martinez had about forty lines in S.W.A.T. (the one you remember is probably "One hundred meeeeeeeellion dollars!"), and Bova will be lucky to get half that in the forthcoming Alien vs. Predator (since our guess is that most of the action will be focused on the Alien and Predator, with little space left for the hot seducer of Diane Lane, since she isn't in it). This is a step up, kind of; Diane Lane can only give it up to so many Euro-accented dudes, after all, and there's still Goran Visnjic.

Advantage: Martinez