The Whole Ten Yards
There
is a light sheen of flop sweat covering every moment of
The
Whole Ten Yards.
From the stupid, trying-too-hard-to-be-cute title (I can see some exec
saying, "hey, instead of calling it
The
Whole Nine Yards II, let's just call it
The
Whole Ten Yards. Ten! Get it???") to the
desperate-to-be-anywhere-else performances by the cast to the dumb, needless
plot, this film is fully aware that it is only there for a quick payday.
It hopes we won't notice how little effort or imagination was expended on
it.
No such luck guys.
The real shame of it
is I really liked the original The Whole Nine
Yards. It was funny and quirky and surprisingly good. It
also pretty much told the story it needed to tell. There was no real
reason to revisit these characters other than greed.
However, the characters
pretty much all here and accounted for... only Rosanna Arquette and Michael
Clarke Duncan haven't returned for this second film. I know what
you're thinking, wasn't Kevin Pollak's character killed in the first film?
Yes, he was, so now Pollak is back with the same weird accent and a silver
Liberace wig and Swifty Lazar glasses playing the father of the old
character.
Matthew Perry is still
relatively funny as "Oz" Oserasky, who has now moved to Beverly Hills with
his beautiful wife (Natasha Henstridge). To this day, he is horrified
that the mob will come after him after the occurences of the last movie.
He has security cameras all over his home and hits the dirt every time he
hears a loud noise. And yet, somewhere along the line, Oz must have
become the richest dentist in the world -- he has an entire office tower for
his one-man practice, drives a late model Porsche and lives in a Brentwood
mansion. And he's supposed to be trying to be inconspicuous? He
may as well put up a sign saying "I took the money."
However, despite all of the
problems with his character, Perry is at least usually manically funny as
Oz. The same can not be said about Willis' annoyingly one-note read on
Jimmy "The Tulip." The character was funny last time out -- a former
contract killer trying to fit in as a suburban husband. The good parts
of the character... Jimmy's quiet machismo was tempered by a clever
hominess. The comic potential in the character has been pounded into
the ground by now, though, and scenes where Jimmy tries to show his emotions
fall curiously flat.
Amanda Peet has become
relatively well-known as an actress since the first film, and therefore she
has a tendency now to downplay Jill's goofier tendencies. In the first
film the character was hysterical in the total wacky joy she took in her
criminal acts. Now she and Jimmy are fighting and the character is
much less interesting... she seems just like another jealous wife. This leads to an
embarrassing scene where Jill is forced to try to seduce Oz to make Jimmy
jealous. (Peet must have a clause in
her contract that she must strip to her panties in every movie she makes...
not that I'm complaining, mind you, it was the most interesting part of the
movie.)
The storyline doesn't really
matter, it is just a wire hanger to put the film on. By the time the
movie gets to its
quote-unquote surprise ending, everyone in the theater has figured out the
twist before the characters.
The best thing that will
come out of the stench left by The Whole Ten Yards is that I think we
can all sleep soundly in the knowledge that there will not be a The Whole
Eleven Yards coming down the pike.
(4/04)
Jay
S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2004 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved.
Posted: April 17, 2004.
