The Whole Ten Yards

Review by Clint Morris

Once you get to the top of the peak there’s no where else to go but down...

But who else wishes many-sided superstar Bruce Willis decided to take a nap on the top of the hill, instead of quickly bolting down?

Having re-established himself over the last couple of years as one of the most talented actors of his generation with roles in diverse flicks as The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, it’s rather saddening to see Bruce Willis returning to the ropey flicks that near killed his career in the first place.

In this case, it’s not junky action films, but spoiled comedy features. The kind of one-joke flick that any of Willis’s self-discontenting Pulp Fiction co-stars would turn down within hearing a paragraph of its précis.

In The Whole Nine Yards, Willis played a seasoned hitman who just happens to be the new neighbour of a mistrustful dentist [Matthew Perry]. Pretty soon the good doc gets roped into the world of the well-meaning but perilous rogue.

Granted, Nine Yards was a bearable film. It had a couple of good laughs, and you couldn’t ask for a better comedy sidekick than Matthew Perry. But a sequel it most definitely did not need.

In The Whole Ten Yards (darn geniuses at work here), Dentist Oz [Perry] again needs the contract-killer Jimmy ‘The Tulip’ Tudeski’s aid when Oz’s wife and Jimmy’s ex-wife, Cynthia [Natasha Henstridge] is kidnapped by a veteran mobster straight out of the slammer. Jimmy seems to pretty blasé about getting Cynthia back so Oz has to do some crawling.

Nothing in The Whole Ten Yards works. The characters feel off, the chemistry between Willis and Perry is near non-existent and the script lacks some much needed gusto, energy and predominantly, laughs.

Willis seems to be playing a totally different character from the first film, playing ‘Jimmy’ a lot more cartoonish and campy than he did first time around. Some of the scenes with Jimmy breaking down into a ball of blubber are utterly horrendous, and thwarting to watch.

Worse is the plot. It’s a comedy sure, but the plot holes should never be this big. For instance, never clearing up why Jimmy and ‘Oz’ wake up naked in bed together the morning after a night of drinkies!? Ewww.

Here’s hoping Willis nor Perry go The Whole Eleven Yards, because although their latest film’s tolerable, the episode of Friends they co-starred in together looks like an Emmy Award winning masterpiece alongside Howard Deutch’s ham-fisted sequel.

2 out of 5

The Whole Ten Yards
Australian release: Thursday July 8th
Cast: Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet, Carl Ciarfalio, Kevin Pollak, Natasha Henstridge.
Director: Howard Deutch.
Website: Click here.

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