The Whole Ten Yards

Review by: Jennifer KreigerJenniferKreiger@TheCinemaSource.com

What was the point of making this movie? Was The Whole Nine Yards really so much of a commercial success? Were the characters so complex and rich that Mathew Perry, Amanda Peet and Bruce Willis just couldn't wait to sink their teeth into them again? The original director Jonathan Lynne didn't seem to think so, and he handed the reigns to Howard Deutch who may be best known for Grumpier Old Men, but didn't truly taste sweet success until he had directed the pilot of Melrose Place, various episodes of Tales From theCrypt and the short-lived Julie-Louise Dreyfuss debacle, WatchingEllie. Deutch's motivations for directing The Whole Ten Yards are murky at best, and there are times when I found myself wondering if he was acting out of simple masochism. Perhaps he enjoyed forcing his actors to degrade themselves emotionally and physically on camera. Yet this still didn't explain why the actors went along with it.
We first see Bruce Willis sporting stringy, Fabio-esque blond locks, bunny slippers, an apron and a propensity for home-making. This strange and never fully explained transformation of Jimmy "the Tulip" Tudeski, is perhaps some reaction to his girlfriend's allegations that he's "shooting blanks" indeed, the implication of unstable sexual identity in this film, culminating with a truly bizarre morning scene between Perry and Willis is ripe fodder for debate. Yet the director, writer and cast seem not even slightly aware the subversive sexual undertones of the film and that makes them somehow all the more misguided.

Willis thankfully loses the hair, and much of his feminine mystique, yet he still manages to fully humiliate himself in one of the most painfully drawn-out, unfunny, unrealistic, drunken reveries in movie history. Yet he still comes off better then Mathew Perry, who, while looking relatively normal, does not seem to posses the nominal motor skills that would allow him to, say, open a door, without flailing, falling and waving his arms in the air. Constantly at war with special relations, Perry seems stuck, floundering in the role, unable to make his character, Nicholas "Oz" Oseransky, funny, likeable or even believable.

Kevin Pollack reprises the role of Lazlo Gogolak, the newly released Mob boss who's out to get Jimmy for killing his son. That, along with the kidnapping of Oz's wife Cynthia, pretty much sums up the plot. And it seemingly is enough to invoke the explosions, shoot-outs and fits of rage that ensue. The violence in this film is constant and mind-numbingly loud yet carefully bloodless enough to stay within the PG-13 guidelines. Yet there is still something distressing about seeing Jimmy threaten to "put a knife in (Jill's) face" combined with the realization that this is supposed to be a funny line. In a movie this unfunny, it seems everyone's grasping at straws for laughs.

Amanda

Peet also signs on again for the thankless role of Jill. In the original movie, under a better director, Jill came off as a slightly unbelievable, but amusing young dental assistant, yet Deutch doesn't seem to know what to do with her character once she and Jimmy are together. Peet has proved that she can give solid performances in movies such as Igby Goes Down and Something'sGotta Give, movies where her unique blend of forceful sexiness and quirky insecurity yields rich characterizations. It is maddening, here, to see her given so little to work. Jill is barely even a sketch of a character and by trying to bring some sense of motivation to her character's absurd actions Peet just ends up looking silly. Natasha Henstridge fairs slightly better as Cynthia; she doesn't really have to do much more then look prettily irked, by Oz's paranoia, by her captor's incompetence, by an old lady who farts too much — all this really doesn't demand much of an actress.
The Whole Ten Yards fails both to amuse and surprise. The major plot-twist that is revealed at the end is pretty much apparent from the first twenty minutes on. Little quirks and oddities (Jimmy reciting the Torah before eating even though he is a devout Catholic) are funny only because they are so incomprehensible. The movie seems to be a series of short, odd scenes, one strung after another, with very little thought given to plot coherency and character development. The characters spin out of the realm of reason and understandability, leaving the audience shaking their heads and collectively wondering, huh?

Movie Grade: D-

When Oz’s wife is kidnapped, he has no other option except to turn to his old pal Jimmy the Tulip, who’s leading a quiet new life of anonymity.