The Whole Nine Yards

Written by: Mitchell Kapner Starring: Matthew Perry, Bruce Willis, Amanda Peet, Michael Clarke Duncan, Natasha Henstridge, Rosanna Arquette, Kevin Pollak

Or, Chandler Bing takes a holiday. Fans of the TV series "Friends" will immediately recognize that the series' Bing and "Oz" Oseransky in this film are one and the same person. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since Perry has elevated the state of being nonplused to an art form. In this cheerfully amoral little comedy, Perry plays an expatriate American dentist living in Canada (don't ask why) (and I say that because it's not clear, not because it is so clever) with his hateful wife (Arquette, who may have permanently damaged her reputation with an awful portrayal of an awful person). The Oseransky's new next door neighbor turns out to be Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski (Willis), a famous hit man, now in hiding (plotting, too, it turns out). As they say, complications ensue. Now, it would not be going out on a limb to mention that the conceit of mixing mobsterism and middle American (or in this case, Canadian) angst has become a bit shopworn.

It has been used to greater or lesser good in such films as "Analyze This" and "Mickey Blue Eyes," and the HBO series "The Sopranos." "The Whole Nine Yards" doesn't break any new ground in this regard, but it is nonetheless frequently funny. The plot manages to be at once thin and convoluted (not the best combination) and really isn't worth going into in any detail; suffice it to say that you shouldn't have any trouble following it. But then, the plot isn't really the point here, the gags are, and the players do well by them. Willis is quite amusing as Jimmy; he gets the best lines and the coolest part, and he carries it off with consummate skill. Perry handles his pratfalls and double takes with ease (the result, no doubt, of years of practice). The surprise here is Amanda Peet (from the TV show "Jack and Jill," which I have never seen, and a bunch of other movies) who turns out to be one of these extraordinarily beautiful women who is not afraid to look silly, or even stupid, for the sake of comedy. She really is quite funny (though some could take issue with what might be viewed as a bit of gratuitous nakedness).

Michael Clarke Duncan (from "The Green Mile") plays another (very large) mobster, and the underrated (in my opinion) Kevin Pollak is underutilized as Jimmy's arch enemy. The whole movie has a certain easy-going charm, which begins to deteriorate only towards the end, when some mob violence erupts (of plot necessity, I suppose). Now, I am the last person in the world to complain about violence in a movie, but I prefer it to be in context, to fit the tone of the picture. In "The Whole Nine Yards," the shootings and dead bodies left me feeling a bit depressed. Up until that point, violence was only implied, and usually in a jocular, ambiguous way which evoked nothing but laughs. It would have been nice if they could have devised a way to wrap up the loose ends in a manner more in keeping with the picture's definite, albeit modest, virtues. (2/19/00)