Daniels film a 'Trial' to watch

By Julia Shih
Daily Arts Writer

"Trial and Error," the new movie starring Jeff Daniels and Michael Richards, is a comedy that promises loads of laughs through its energetic previews, but suffers from mediocrity in the long run.

REVIEW
	Trial and Error 2 stars At Briarwood and Showcase

Daniels plays Charles Tuttle, a hotshot lawyer who is preparing to marry his boss' daughter. Just days before the wedding, Charles' bachelor party, thrown by his best friend, Richard Rietti (Michael Richards), is called off because he must take a case that could make or break his career.

Determined to send his buddy off in style, Richard follows Charles to the desolate desert town in Nevada, enthusiastically bringing the wild bachelor bash with him. After a night of revelry and a little bit of violence, Charles is left drunkenly passed out and incoherent. Confident of his talent as an actor, Richard takes over the case by Neanderthally impersonating Charles in the courtroom.

Now Richard must continue his role as a slick lawyer as he tries to defend a con artist (Rip Torn) while preventing anyone from discovering the switched identities. Desperately, Charles and Richard use everything from car-horns to communicate objections to scripted speeches in hopes that they can salvage this cursed trial.

If you thought Michael Richards is spastic on NBC's "Seinfeld," you haven't seen anything yet. Richards' wild and uncontrollable spasms in "Trial and Error," which cause him to knock over everything that isn't bolted down, make his Seinfeld character look like he's on sedatives.

Most of the movie's laughs are generated by Richard's talent at physical comedy, from performing an amusing one-man show of a man getting beaten by the Mafia to attempting to pull down the blinds of a courtroom window. Richards is often hysterically funny, injecting life into this sometimes flat film.

Jeff Daniels plays the uptight lawyer who directly contrasts his friend Richard's easy-going style. Charlie spends most of the movie acting like he is on the verge of a nervous and psychotic breakdown, which Daniels solidly portrays. Otherwise, Daniels serves mostly to back up Michael Richards' spotlight performance.

As for the rest of the film, "Trial and Error" is fairly ridiculous. The lackluster courtroom scenes drag on, with a hackneyed, impatient judge and cattle-like jury. Even the romance between Charles and incredibly beautiful Billie ("2 Days in the Valley"'s Charlize Theron) and scenes of Charles' interaction with his whiny fiancée (Alexandra Wentworth) are much too contrived to be entertaining.

The best scenes in the movie often occur outside of the courtroom, which can be just as interesting as hilarious, especially at one point when Richard explains the validity of the "Twinkie Defense" to Charles. But still, this comedy contains too few highs and far too many lows.

With its ludicrous, underdeveloped plot and its severe lack of substance, "Trial and Error" fails at its attempts at high-quality silliness. But for fans of Michael Richards, this movie should be a delight. Otherwise, "Trial and Error" is guilty of disappointing viewers.

"You went from 'Seinfeld' to this piece of crap? Kramer, what were you thinking?!"

Summer Orientation 1997