It's always fun when a movie turns out not to be the clunker you were expecting, as in the case of "The Ugly Truth."

Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl) is a Sacramento TV producer whose morning show is threatened with cancellation because of lousy ratings.

Her boss adds Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler), the host of a popular late-night cable show for guys, to the cast. His task is to tell viewers "the ugly truth" about what men and women really want from one another. The show's ratings immediately soar.

Understatement: Mike is not politically correct; his name could be the first definition of "sexist pig" in your handy Webster's Dictionary. Abby, who believes in rose-colored relationships, detests everything he stands for.

But she's trying to snare her handsome doctor neighbor and she reluctantly agrees to let Mike be her Cyrano. A new hairdo, seductive wardrobe enhancements and lessons in flirting quickly follow. It seems to be working on the doc, who's listlessly played by Eric Winter.

Perhaps Mike isn't the "man whore" she thought, Abby muses. Perhaps there's some wisdom behind his hairy-chested rhetoric after all.

Romance ensues, of course, and you get one guess whom Abby eventually tumbles for. Its predictability is the main weakness of "The Ugly Truth," which might just as well have been titled "The Attraction of Opposites."

Fortunately, the lack of suspense is offset by two pluses: the chemistry between Heigl and Butler, and a fairly lively script. Though uneven, it contains enough crackle and lewd humor to keep the audience interested.

The movie's two comic set pieces take place in a ballpark and in a restaurant. In the former, Mike radios instructions to Abby while she's on a date with the doctor. The sequence doesn't quite click, though the problem seems to lie more with Robert Luketic's direction than anything else.

Heigl fares much better in the other sequence, which involves vibrating panties.

"The Ugly Truth" is the exception among chick flicks: a romantic comedy that's raunchy enough to keep the guys awake too. Promising date fare, but don't look for it among the next Oscar nominees.