Dir. Howard Deutch, 2004, USA, 98 mins
Cast: Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet, Natasha Henstridge, Kevin Pollak
Review by Jarrod Walker
In 2000, British filmmaker Johnathan Lynn (Nuns on the run, My Cousin Vinny) helmed The Whole Nine Yards, a black comedy/farce about Nick Oseransky (Perry) a mild mannered dentist who finds himself living next door to infamous mob hit-man, Jimmy ‘The Tulip’ Tudeski (Willis). Jimmy is a recent addition to the witness protection program and is attempting to lie low, despite his reputation preceding him.
A slight premise indeed but it did work and it’s always amusing to see Willis doing comedy having proven his talent for it on TV’s Moonlighting. Perry’s manic, twitchy dentist served as the perfect foil for Willis’s deadpan killer and despite it’s shortcomings, Mitchell Kapner’s sharp script had enough morbid humour and physical comedy to provide some genuine laughs, albeit sporadically.
Fast forward four years and filmmaker Howard Deutch (veteran helmer of the Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau Grumpy Old Men comedies and the John Hughes produced Pretty in Pink and Some Kind Of Wonderful) clambers aboard for the sequel. This time out, Nick (Perry) discovers his wife Cynthia (Henstridge) has been kidnapped by a recently paroled, psychotic Hungarian mob boss named Lazlo Gogolak. Played from under a mountain of prosthetic make-up by Pollak, who (in an in-joke that only the filmmakers seem to find hilarious) is playing the vengeful father of murdered son Yanni, also played by Pollak in the first film. Given his involvement in Yanni’s demise and having nowhere else to turn, Nick travels to Mexico to seek the help of Jimmy (Willis) who is now married to budding hired killer Jill (Peet) and living reclusively in a coastal villa nurturing an obsession with cooking and vacuuming. Nick manages to convince the retired Jimmy to help him out, but Jimmy has his own angle and is playing the hapless Nick like a grand piano.
Screenwriter Gallo, who penned the superb comedy Midnight Run, was given an impossible task in trying to recycle the original film. Like a conjuror, he has produced this script from thin air. The trick just isn’t convincing, exposing The Whole Ten Yards as possibly the most pointless sequel in recent film memory.
Most Hollywood sequels at least attempt to conceal the fact that it’s solely a cynical grab for your cash. Director Deutch (understandably) fails to inject any sense of purpose into the pedestrian story but does extract some amusing performances from the leads. Peet is perky and just a little to the left of psychotic as hit-woman-in-waiting Jill and Willis is amusing as the kill crazy Jimmy.
Despite throwing its hands up and surrendering to the sheer power of its own mediocrity, the film still has moments of genuine humour and hints at what could have been had it had a better story. It does boast a refreshing glee in unleashing inspired moments of crass improvised comedy, a standout moment involves Jimmy and Nick finding themselves naked in bed together after a night’s heavy drinking and a blasé’ Jimmy doing nothing to dispel Nick’s terror at the possibility that they may have had sex. A tasteless joke to be sure but Willis’s poker faced delivery and Perry’s manic nervousness make the scene a highpoint amongst many, many low ones.
Particularly baffling is the amount of screen time given to Pollak’s deeply unfunny creation, Lazlo. Like watching a stand-up comic with a terrible routine die one joke at a time, the film peels off one unappealing scenario after another. When the laughs come, it’s desperately appreciated given that the rest of the time the cast all but look at their watches to see if their cheques have arrived.
