Willis, Perry fail to go 'Whole Nine Yards'

By Erin Podolsky

Daily Arts Writer

"The Whole Nine Yards" should not, by all accounts, be any good. Its hitman-with-issues premise sounds like a raging case of too little, too late. But as is often the situation, comedy is all in the execution, and every place that a dull, paper-thin puff piece like "Gun Shy" fails is a place where "The Whole Nine Yards" knows exactly what it's doing. Sure, it ain't Proust - it ain't even Puzo. But it passes the time and gets a few laughs besides.

The plot is one of those convoluted "everybody is stabbing everyone else in the back" constructions that leaves the door wide open for comic misunderstanding. There's Bruce Willis, the hit man hiding out in Canada, doing his best Frank Sinatra (although it could just be his male pattern baldness, I'm not certain). There's Natasha Henstridge, all of the species she's spawned off somewhere colonizing some tourist trap, looking far too serious for this light comedy, convincing herself she's the second coming of film noir princess Gene Tierney. There's Rosanna Arquette doing - wait, what the hell is Rosanna Arquette doing aside from the world's most butchered Quebecois accent? Somebody stop her before she eats this movie alive. There's Michael Clarke Duncan being big and beefy like a supersized Ving Rhames. And there's Matthew Perry doing ... Matthew Perry. Or is that Chandler Bing? It's so hard to tell.

Willis plays Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski, a congenial killer on the lam from his ex-gang in Chicago after testifying against his crime boss. He moves in next door to dentist Nick Oseransky (Perry), much to Oz's horror. (I'm going to interrupt myself here to make a plea to the powers that be: For the love of Seth Green, put the name "Oz" on moratorium. I beg you.) Oz is married to Arquette's miserable, accented wench in one of those impossible-to-believe-but-ripe-for-comedy unions. He wants out but can't divorce her without being taken to the cleaners. Lucky for him, Arquette is busy trying to contract a killer to off Oz so that she can collect his life insurance.

How convenient that a hit man just moved next door, eh? That's about all there is to the movie. No substance, no meaning. And to be honest, that's a relief. There's no thought required to sit and watch "The Whole Nine Yards." And there are quite a few rewards, principle among them Amanda Peet's performance as Jill, Oz's assistant. Her true job is obvious from the start, but there's just something so gosh darn appealing about her Julia Roberts smile and her good-naturedly starstruck guffaws when she meets Jimmy.

Thankfully, nothing is as it seems, and even though the plot twists call ahead for reserved seating so we know they're on their way, they're still sweetly funny. Yeah, the jokes aren't that original and the whole dentist thing has been done to death. Yeah, everyone who deserves to lives happily after. Yeah, it's terribly pat. Yeah, that naked chick is pretty random (there's a reason this movie feels like a PG-13 but is stuck with an R rating).

There's no crime in being nothing more than a diversion. It's not against the law for a movie that doesn't address any issues with a capital "I" to entertain. This is not brilliant cinema. But there's something to be said for a movie that brings that involuntary smile to your face no matter how much you know it shouldn't. "The Whole Nine Yards" has absolutely nothing to it. It's appealing on a base level. Lowest common denominator. Everybody and Uncle Joe Bob down at the gas station, too. Go ahead, call me a Denny's-loving, Duster-driving sap. I can take the hit. Or at least put one out on you.

Yeah, that naked chick is pretty random (there's a reason this movie feels like a PG-13 but is stuck with an R rating).

There's no crime in being nothing more than a diversion. It's not against the law for a movie that doesn't address any issues with a capital "I" to entertain. This is not brilliant cinema. But there's something to be said for a movie that brings that involuntary smile to your face no matter how much you know it shouldn't.

"The Whole Nine Yards" has absolutely nothing to it. It's appealing on a base level. Lowest common denominator. Everybody and Uncle Joe Bob down at the gas station, too. Go ahead, call me a Denny's-loving, Duster-driving sap. I can take the hit. Or at least put one out on you.

Courtesy of Morgan Creek Pictures

Bruce Willis sweet talks Matthew Perry in "The Whole Nine Yards."