The Whole Ten Yards

This film is about a dentist's wife getting kidnapped, and he has to find another hit-man to rescue his wife.

I remember "The Whole Nine Yards" being really funny. It's a few years since I last saw it, but I still remember it being entertaining and witty. I hoped "The Whole Ten Yards" to be the same, but I was disappointed. I find this film very silly. Basically it involves Matt Perry acting very silly all the time, which gets annoying after ten minutes. So by the time the film is half way through, it already is boring. Bruce Willis' transformation into a family man is over the top and not funny. Amanda Peet's character is the only one that is slightly more normal, but her alone is not enough to carry the film. I find "The Whole Ten Yards" only marginally entertaining, and very disappointing.

When Oz's (Matthew Perry) new wife Cynthia (Natasha Henstridge) is captured by the mob, he is no one else to turn to but his old friend Jimmy the Tulip (Bruce Willis). Teaming up with Jimmy and his new wife (Amanda Peat), Oz experiences another crime filled adventure with the mob.

Although not nearly as funny or as exciting as the original, The Whole Ten yards will surely entertain…for the most part. About half of the movie is clever and entertaining and would have deserved my recommendation, but the twist at the end is terrible and made the movie seem worthless. After the twist, follows a ridiculous display of events that are horrible, making the movie in my opinion a failure but still not absolutely terrible. Overall, the movie follows in the footsteps of an entertaining comedy but falls short of what could have been.

I do not recommend this film.

I feel like quoting Matthew Perry from this very movie: "I've never been more confused in my entire life!"

Is there really a story in here? Not a story, I mean a STORY, you know, the kind that makes people go "wow, I never saw that one coming," or "haha, how original!" How they decided to make a sequel to a movie that never did that well in the first place I will never know, at least not with these stars! The original made only like 60 million in the US, and felt more like a made-for-TV-comedy than anything else. Is this anywhere near a Bruce Willis-vehicle? It sure as heck feels and plays more like a Chevy Chase-comedy, and I don't mean early Chase (which I love) but more of what he did in his fifties, "Cops and Robbersons" and stuff like that. THIS IS NOT BIG BOX OFFICE MATERIAL FOR THE YEAR 2004! Like "Best Defense" with Dudley Moore and Eddie Murphy was not box office material in 1984!

Is it totally bereft of entertainment value? Of course not, it has it's funny moments, but it is just so... ordinary, so darn average, like "Full House" on a Monday night line-up of "Seinfeld" and "Frasier", like a meat ball when you should be having steak, oh I don't know how else to explain it. Matthew Perry is a wonderful comic actor, in my opinion he's closing in on the great ones, like Danny Kaye and Jerry Lewis, but he can run into doors and fall flat on his back only so many times before it looses it's effect. He had one of the greatest running-into-doors-scenes in the history of actors-running-into-things in "The Whole Nine Yards" (when he hits that glass door, hilarious!), but here it is done so many times it just ends up as a cheap reminder of what thin material they were working with.

There is however two memorable moments of "The Whole TEN Yards": one hysterically funny scene between Willis and Perry getting dead drunk in a bar (followed by the waking-up-scene next morning), and Frank Collison as 'Strabo', one of the villains who ironically I found both funnier and more likable than the heroes! Kevin Pollak, who can be one of the funniest men in the business when given the right material tries to do a Peter Sellers-thing here, under heavy make-up as an old mob boss who has trouble with the English language and slaps whoever tries to point this out. This time around Pollak tries so hard it basically falls flat, like Perry when he crashes into his surroundings (but Pollak will always have a special place in my heart for his brilliant Peter Falk-impersonation, maybe he should have done that here, it could have saved the entire movie).

To add insult to injury the movie is riddled with continuity errors and most of them so painfully obvious they are impossible to hide in post-production. It makes you wonder if they even had a script-girl on the set!

Who is to blame for all these short-comings? That's easy to answer: the combination of a scriptwriter who doesn't own an original bone in his body, has no talent for true comedy, and a director who hasn't done a good comedy-picture since the 1980's. Part is to blame also on the production company Franchise Pictures, who are sailing up like a modern-day Cannon Group (everybody who remembers the 80's sure remember that Cannon-logo). Take a look at Franchise Pictures' list of films, it's like 1 good film for every 3 mediocre ones (and yes, they were the ones who produced "Battlefield Earth"). But I'm also a little ambivalent when it comes to Franchise, as one if it's producers is Andrew Stevens, a likable guy and a former actor. I wish him all the success in the world, but please, find better production-talent.

Back to "The Whole Ten Yards": the worst thing about it, what also annoyed me to the point of screaming in the first movie, is that you just don't care! These characters have almost no re-deeming qualities what-so-ever. Sure, you can disguise Bruce Willis as a pampering housewife, crying over his dead chicken, or show Amanda Peet caring and wanting to save Natasha Henstridge from her captors, but what does all this matter when the same people run around threatening to kill each other every five minutes? Willis pulls a gun on his wife so many times I lost count (on his wife!!!), and Matthew Perry - who has one of the most likable personas in Hollywood - plays a dentist who, when one of his patients stop breathing, reacts by running off to lunch! It's like they are evil to the core and when this is supposed to be a "comedy" I'm tempted to ask: where is all the REAL fun???

Please, no more, no "The Whole Eleven Yards".

5/10

THE WHOLE TEN YARDS (2004) Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry, Kevin Pollock, et al

This is one more example that 'More is NOT Better'! Nine Yards was entertaining, the jokes worked. Ten Yards is so bad that we walked away before the ending.

Although the same cast returns for this second bout, this one is boring, with loud yelling throughout, no chemistry, a waste of talented actors, and, a waste of our money.

Reading other comments, apparently some folks liked it. We give it a portion of one star. Our recommendation: Save your money, or wait until it's free and you have absolutely nothing better to do.

As a sequel to The Whole Nine Yards, this film was a disappointment. Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry reunite as the retired Mafia Hit-man and the nervy dentist, as does Amanda Peet as the aspiring hit woman. The thing is this time around the acting wasn't that great. Willis is usually good with comic timing but it isn't there here, while Peet looks bored. Only Perry really stands out, his slapstick schtick makes me want to watch an episode of Friends pretty much.

The film is stylishly shot, and has a good soundtrack, and there is evidence of some solid pacing. However, the plot is very contrived, the direction haphazard and the script weak. So overall, this film was a disappointment, it wasn't completely awful but I would be lying if I said it was great. 4/10 Bethany Cox