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The Whole Nine Yards

The Whole Nine Yards

List Price: $14.96
Your Price: $11.97
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Whacky, quirk comedy does the trick
Review: A while back, the American Film Institute held another one of its profitable [as in funds for the institute] 100 American Best shows. This time the subject was the best movie comedies ever made. I mention this because, in the last several years, I have not found myself laughing that much at the movies. I was getting the feeling that I had either lost my sense of humor or had simply seen too many movies. In this latest list, the top honors went to 1959's Some Like it Hot and 1982's Tootsie. Only three movies from the 1990s made the grade, and I now feel that perhaps the problem has been the pictures and not me. That's why I am happy to say that The Whole Nine Yards, though not very original, is, indeed, quite funny.

Nicholas "Oz" Oseransky [Matthew Perry] is a dentist with a ton of trouble. He is living in Quebec now because his father-in-law, his business partner back in Chicago, embezzled all the profits. His wife, Sophie [Rosanna Arquette], is the meanest, most self-centered woman in the world, except perhaps for her mother who lives with them. His dental practice in Quebec is not a big success.

One day a new neighbor moves in, and the affable Oz goes over to introduce himself. While talking to the man, Oz suddenly realizes he is talking to Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski, Chicago's most notorious hit man. The minute he gets back home, he hysterically screams at the women to start packing. Sylvia doesn't see a problem. She knows Jimmy ratted out the powerful Gogolak gang, which is looking for him. Why doesn't Oz take a trip to Chicago, meet Yanni Gogolak, and get a finder's fee? When Oz refuses, she threatens to take him to the cleaners in a nasty divorce. Oz goes to Chicago with no intention of doing her bidding. One thing leads to another, and he winds up meeting Gogolak anyway. Meanwhile, Sophie goes next door and tells Jimmy what Oz is up to. It seems Oz has a million dollar life insurance policy. Soon, everyone is out to get everyone else.

What's keep The Whole Nine Yards going isn't the writing, though it's funny, nor the plot, which is very similar to Analyze This. It's the cast. Every performer gives the impression that they are having a very good time. They are exuberant. Somehow, this grabs viewer, who then gets caught up in the fun.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A funny movie with many hard to catch jokes! A WINNER!
Review: This movie was very entertaining. The very first time I saw it, I wasn't paying attention and missed most of the jokes. But then at a party, I watched it and paid very close attention to it (I had nothing better to do) and found it awesome! Bruce Willis is one of my favorite actors and he has not let me down. Him and Matthew Perry were a great team. The attractive Amanda Peet added well to the movie. And another one of my favorite actors, Michael Clarke Duncan, did a extrodiany job as a conman. He is usually in serious roles but this proved he is a great all around actor. HE IS AWESOME!! So I suggest you see the movie more than once because the funnier jokes are the ones you'll miss.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great stuff
Review: Great stuff. The actors do a great job (watch the movie for the second time, and you'll catch a lot of subtle cues that foreshadow the future plot twists), the plot is great, and the music is very nice. And the director Jonathan Lynn's commentary track is quite insightful about making of the film. Nothing groundbreaking for sure, but this is a very fine piece of comedic moviemaking. Recommended.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Willis and Perry Connect for Laughs
Review: Is a guy who has killed seventeen people necessarily a 'bad' guy? Not a question everybody is going to have to ask themselves, to be sure, but what if that guy moved in next door to you? It's a situation that just may induce an introspective moment or two. Which is exactly what happens in 'The Whole Nine Yards,' directed by Jonathan Lynn and starring Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry. Hit-man Jimmy 'The Tulip' Tudeski (Willis) ratted out his boss in Chicago, and now he's on the lam. He makes his way to Canada, where he buys a house next door to a hapless dentist, Nicholas 'Oz' Oseransky (Perry), who is suffering from inherited debts and a shrew of a wife, Sophie (Rosanna Arquette), not to mention a mother-in-law from Hell (Carmen Ferland). When he realizes who his neighbor is about to be, his first instinct is to run, but Sophie has other ideas. It seems there's a price on Jimmy's head; one Janni Gogolack (Kevin Pollak) would like to take his revenge on the guy who's responsible for his father going away for a long, long time. So Sophie squeezes Oz into a corner until he agrees to go to Chicago and meet with Janni to put the finger on Jimmy. Not a great idea, Oz thinks, but it at least sounds like a nice vacation, so he goes. But, of course, he should have stayed with his instincts, because he soon finds himself looking down the barrel of trouble. And the only way out, it seems, is down...

What Lynn put together here is actually a fairly light-hearted, black comedy; the nature of the story dictates that there will be violence in it, and there is, but much of it is implied rather than graphic. The pace is good, and Lynn develops the characters enough to let you know exactly who they are and what they are all about. There's not a lot of depth, but it's not necessary; the actors have each made their respective characters unique to a point that puts them beyond stereotype, and it works perfectly for this film and the story. Some of what happens is inevitable, though not necessarily predictable, and certain aspects will keep you guessing right up to the end. Typical of a comedy that leans to the dark side, nothing in this story is cut and dried.

Willis is perfect as Jimmy The Tulip, giving a rather reserved, subtle performance that puts Jimmy's guarded but confident manner into perspective. Underneath it all, this guy is really rather cold-blooded (he has to be, given his choice of employment), but his relationship with Oz gives it some warmth, at least externally. Like Chow Yun-Fat in 'The Killer,' Jimmy is likable, but when you consider at arm's length who he is and what he is capable of, it's a bit disconcerting. And that's one of the aspects of the film that is so interesting-- because you know who and what Jimmy is, you never really know which way things are going to turn.

Perry is excellent, as well, as 'Oz.' Henpecked and in dire straits, he is something of an updated version of the W.C. Fields character in 'It's A Gift' or 'The Bank Dick,' although a bit darker. Perry is charismatic, has impeccable timing with his delivery and uses physical comedy to great effect. His reactions to Willis and the situations in which he finds himself are brilliant and hilarious, and he seems to instinctively know just how far to take it to make it work. And it's the little, seemingly insignificant things he brings to the character that give the film that extra something and creates some memorable moments.

The supporting cast includes Michael Clarke Duncan (Frankie Figs), Natasha Henstridge (Cynthia), Amanda Peet (Jill St. Claire), Harland Williams (Special Agent Hanson) and Serge Christianssens (Mr. Boulez). It may not be the most original movie ever made, but 'The Whole Nine Yards' is funny, has a great cast of actors who have taken characters you've basically seen before and made them their own, and does exactly what a film like this is supposed to do: Entertain. It's not going to make you ponder the universe or the state of the world today, but it's going to give you a couple of hours of laughs and some residual chuckles. Which, when you think about it, is not such a bad deal. It's the magic of the movies.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Bruce breaks into comedy
Review: Bruce proves he can be a great straight man in this film. One of the better films to come from the cast of TV's 'Friends.' Very easy on the reality.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: There are much better comedies out there to buy
Review: David Schwimmer , Lisa Kudrow , Matt LeBlanc , Jeniffer Anniston ,Matthew Perry and Courtney Cox have created six of the most adorable characters ever to appear in front of our t.v screen . Joy , Chadler , Ross , Monica , Rachel and Phoebe are the imperfect , human friends we would all like to have when we'll get close to our 30ies . Their efforts to build an equally fascinating movie career were not all that succesfull though . The problem is that most of them chose film-characters too similar with their ones on the small screen . With the exception of Kudrow's perfomance as a repressed single school teacher in The Opposite Of Sex , in all their other appearances they have displayed the same tricks and acting style which made them so loveable in the first place . Only on the big screen it doesn't work so well afterall . That's exactly what happens with Matthew Perry on The Whole Nine Yards ,a film which delivers much fewer laughs than excpected . His constant Chadler-like panic cause nothing more than a slight smile to the viewer. His effort is not helped by the script , lazy direction and his suprisingly bad costars ( Willis's Tulip criminal is not an exception ). In conclusion , Friends will always be superb to watch but in order to achieve a decent movie-career , it's actors must take some bigger risks .

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A perfectly executed comedy/crime flick
Review: In my opinion, THE WHOLE NINE YARDS is a perfectly executed comedy/crime flick. I thought that Jill (Amanda Peet) looked VERY beautiful in the clothing she wore right after having been in the nude. The one thing that scared me about this movie was some of the violence -- Especially the fight between Frankie (Michael Clarke Duncan) and Oz (Matthew Perry) when Oz first got to his hotel room. I was kind of surprised when I discovered that Frankie was sitting in Oz's hotel room waiting for him. To me, Cynthia (Natasha Henstridge) looked VERY beautiful in everything she wore -- Especially the dress she wore when she first showed up in the film. In conclusion, I HIGHLY recommend this perfectly executed smash hit that goes all the way to all you Bruce Willis or Matthew Perry fans out there who have not seen it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Flag on the Play
Review: Even though I'm a big fan of Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry and many other cast members, I have to say this one isn't even worth the time it takes to watch it on HBO, let alone a bargain matinee or -- God forbid -- a full-priced screening.

The premise established very early in the script is good enough: a well mob hitman (Willis) gets out of prison, and moves in next door to an over insured, financially strapped dentist (Perry), his nagging wife (Rosanna Arquette) and her money-grubbing mother. The wife soon encourages the dentist husband to travel to Chicago and find the crime boss who wants the hitman dead, hoping that a "finder's fee" would be enough to keep them afloat.

Then there's Willis's estranged wife who also wants Willis dead, the crime boss's right-hand man who secretly wants the crime boss dead, not to mention Matthew Perry's office manager, an aspiring hitwoman who doesn't care who dies as long as she can be the one who kills them.

And that's just the first few minutes.

Long story short: by the time the closing credits rolled, I was ready to take out a hit on the people who made this a box office bomb.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Quirky, funny film with a million twists
Review: What would it be like for you if you got a new neighbour, and he happened to be the nations' premier serial killer? What if everyone around you eventually got involved? What if this unpredictable serial killer tried to befriend you? That is the question posed to viewers in the black comedy The Whole Nine Yard. Matthew Perry acts superbly in his difficult role as the person having to deal with all these questions, and Bruce Willis, as the killer, is suitably smooth. A good supporting cast make it an overall great film. (NB This is not a horror film! Its a sort of black comedy.)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Comedy that ran out of ammo
Review: A dentist (Matthew Perry) has his life turned upside down when hitman Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski (Bruce Willis) moves in next door. Jimmy is out on parole after he ratted out a gang in Chicago. Perrys wife (Rosanna Arquette) forces him to go to Chicago and tell the gang where Jimmy is in exchange for a reward. What transpires is a twisted plot where everyone wants to clip someone else.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the film its just I am one of the few people that I know of that did. After a slow first half the movie finally takes off. This film has a great cast also including Amada Peet, Kevin Pollak, Michael Clarke Duncan and Natasha Henstridge. Amada Peet manages to steal every scene she is in. Unfortunately the rest of the cast was not given much to work with. The film does have some great moments but they are too few and far between. Its definetly worth a rental but try before you buy. The DVD does not have much on it but you get the choice of watching it in standard or widescreen.


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