The Whole Nine Yards

When all the other narrative wells have gone dry, you can always draw a crowd by making fun of somebody. And since they don't have a big army in Canada, and don't ever run tearjerk infommercials on our TV stations to raise money to feed starving Canadians, nobody expends much sympathy if a movie makes the folks north of the border look stupid. Really stupid. So in the new Bruce Willis comedy about a mob hitman in hiding, instead getting on the inept-Italian bandwagon, as in Analyze This and Mickey Blue Eyes, the filmmakers decided to go after Canucks. And Hungarians.

Willis is Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski, former contract killer for Chicago's Magyar crime lord, on the run from his ex-employer's vengeful son (Kevin Pollack, spouting his best "duh Bearssss" accent). After turning state's evidence Jimmy hides out in an affluent Montreal neighborhood next door to Nick "Oz" Oseransky (Matthew Perry), a expatriate dentist (every guy in this movie has a nickname whether he's a criminal or not) with a shrewish, nagging Francophone wife (Rosanna Arquette, looking frightfully well-cast as a scheming bitch past her prime). Before long everybody is out to kill and/or con everybody else, including Jimmy's wife Cynthia (Natasha Henstridge), Oz's receptionist (Amanda Peet, from "Jack and Jill"), a witless cop named "Buffalo Steve," and Jimmy's replacement, "Frankie Figs" (Michael Clarke Duncan, who was just Oscar-nominated for The Green Mile). Almost sounds like the macrobiotic buffet at Garner's.

Director Jonathan Lynn (My Cousin Vinny -- another movie that hinged on bumbling Northern white guys) gets the most out of Matthew Perry's capable slapstick instincts, which, along with the return of Willis's trademark "Moonlighting" smirk, is the most engaging thing on display here. But the plot is either too convoluted or too neat, depending on your taste, and when the actual killing finally starts, it gets pretty ruthless.

So unless you once lost a lover to Sarah McLachlan or Michael J. Fox and need to see Canadians berated to feel better about yourself, The Whole Nine Yards is as tepid as a Montreal summer. C

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