I sat near the front of the theatre. Why didn’t someone have the decency to take a page from Jimmy “The Tulip’s” book on hit man etiquette and plug me in the back of the head?
We return to the characters from The Whole Nine Yards, as Bruce Willis’ Jimmy ‘The Tulip’ Tudeski is in a witness protection program, hiding out in Mexico with his dental receptionist turned hit woman wife, Jill St. Claire (Amanda Peet). Jimmy has either gone nuts or he’s faking it (wasn’t that the opener to Analyze That?). He’s wandering around, cleaning his house and swapping recipes with neighbours. He’s hung up his gun and spends his days reminiscing on hits of the past.
Stateside, Lazlo Gogolak (Kevin Pollack) gets released from prison. His first job: rub out Jimmy “The Tulip”, the man who murdered one of Lazlo’s two sons. The bad guys draw upon the one lead available to them: twitchy dentist, Nicholas ‘Oz’ Oseransky (Matthew Perry). Oz’s brush with the mob has left him paranoid; his wardrobe looks like a munitions dump. Every square inch of his house in under the gaze of security cameras. To put pressure on Oz, Gogolak and his goons kidnap Oz’s wife (Natasha Henstridge). Oz dashes for his old buddy’s Mexican hideout. Yes, the mobsters give chase and there are crosses and double-crosses.
The problem with this movie – and it’s a big one – is the no man’s land it has found: too plodding to be an action movie, yet too sparse on laughs to be a comedy. This movie is rudderless. The good actors cannot rescue the muddle. The direction is adequate, but the script needed a lot more work and a real punch-up in the reality department. For every tepid laugh, there are plot holes you could bury a mobster in. For instance, Oz is paranoid about security; but, does he have an alarm for his house? No. The characters carry around armloads of machine guns in broad daylight, but does anyone call the police? No.
The only thing to keep this effort from sinking completely, like a snitch with cement shoes, is Kevin Pollack’s broad portrayal of Gogolak. Beneath layers of latex, Pollack sometimes pushes the role too far, but his effort is more earnest than Willis’ and more effective than Perry’s. While I’m sure Perry and Willis had fun making the movie, they didn’t share that sense of joy with the audience.
I strongly recommend that you stay a whole ten yards away from any theatre where this movie is playing.
