Bruce Willis in "The Whole Nine Yards."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a: Stars: Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry Director: Jonathan Lynn Rated: PG-13, with profanity and brief breast nudity Length: 101 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(Feb. 18, 2000) -- Comic mobsters continue to be Hollywood's order of the day in The Whole Nine Yards, a sloppy but mildly amusing new enterprise with Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry.

It's the latest film from director Jonathan Lynn, whose previous silliness has included My Cousin Vinny and Nuns on the Run. Subtle, sophisticated and precise aren't words that Lynn's comedies bring to mind, and that's true here. Nonetheless, this new work -- which could be called Hit Men on the Run -- inspire smiles and giggles, though few belly laughs.

Perry (of Friends fame) plays Oz Oseransky, a mild-mannered Montreal dentist and the hen-pecked husband of the money-grubbing Sophie, whose character traits rhyme with witch. She's played with a campy, off-the-wall French-Canadian accent by Rosanna Arquette.

Just when things couldn't get worse for the beleaguered Oz, he discovers that his new next-door neighbor is Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski, a notorious Chicago mob assassin, played in humorously ominous, unflappable manner by Bruce Willis. (It's a satirical twist on the kind of hit man he recently played in The Jackal.) Tudeski is supposedly on the run after betraying Hungarian mob boss Janni Gogolak (a brief but funny portrayal by Kevin Pollack).

The plot then gets tied in knots, as Sophie forces Oz to fly to Chicago to seek a mob "finder's fee" for locating Tudeski, while she simultaneously hires another hit man to kill the dentist as soon as he returns home. In Chicago, Oz further complicates his life by meeting Tudeski's estranged wife (Natasha Henstridge) and falling hard for her.

Meanwhile, Gogolak and his henchmen head into Canada, also with murder on their minds. Then there's Frankie Figs (Michael Clarke Duncan), a giant hulk of a hit man who also arrives on the scene, and nobody's sure who he plans to kill.

Heck, even Oz's sexy dental assistant, Jill (Amanda Peet) aspires to become a professional assassin. She's thrilled to meet the master, Tulip Tudeski, so she can get career guidance.

By now, Oz is the only character in the film not looking to kill someone.

Truth be told, all these over-heated plot machinations don't generate as many laughs as you might expect. A bit more tension -- and more manic energy -- would have helped.

Still, Lynn manages to generate humor through time-honored traditions: Perry's pratfalls and slapstick, wacky accents by Arquette and Pollack, and the contrast of a super-restrained performance by Willis. Duncan also demonstrates a talent for whimsical comedy -- quite a switch from his Oscar-nominated turn as a solemn death-row inmate in The Green Mile.

The film's stand-out performance, though, is by Peet (of TV's Jack and Jill). Her ambitious, utterly uninhibited dental-assistant-turned-hit-woman is the film's funniest character.