What’s the Worst That Could Happen?

A thief who gets caught breaking into the house of a billionaire consequently gets his own ring stolen by the same man whose house he broke into. The robber then decides to make it his mission in life to get the ring back. Hilarity is supposed to ensue…

Here’s a movie that’s just not very funny, entertaining, interesting or original in any way, shape or form. It’s definitely not the worst movie that I’ve ever seen, in fact, it’s probably not even the worst movie that I’ve seen this year (that honor is still holding firm at HEADS OVER HEELS), but it’s one of those movies which has you coming out of the theatre and wondering why it was ever made in the first place. I mean, if it wasn’t for the talent associated to the film (and boy, are there ever a lot of characters in this flick!), I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie had gone straight-to-video. There just isn’t much going on in here. Oh sure, maybe I’m a little jaded because I’ve seen my share of great comedies, but then again, haven’t we all? Sure, we have. This one just feels like a retread of a retread of an idea that worked in a few good movies years ago, crunched through the generic meat-grinder numbered “Screenplay 101”, packed with cliché after cliché, ultimately resulting in little more than a couple of chuckles, a mediocre story-line and a lot of dead silence. Of course, comedies have always been subjective in nature and to be honest, there were quite a few people laughing their heads off during my screening (unless they were high, of course…yeah, yeah, that’s it!), but keep in mind that these folks hadn’t exactly “paid” to see the movie either. I was particularly un-entertained by the obvious setups to many of the “jokes” in this movie, like the one that has Lawrence blinking when he told a lie (hardy-har-har!) and a sign language translator woman who continued to translate certain curse words that DeVito (and then later, Lawrence) spurt out. Hahaha. Me crackie uppie.

I don’t know, maybe I just wasn’t in the “right mood” for this simple rehash of a film. The sad part about it all is that it really could have been something. Anybody who’s seen TIN MEN or WHAT ABOUT BOB? knows that comedies based on guys vowing revenge on one another could definitely add up to some pretty funny times, but this one just blew it. Lawrence doesn’t really offer much of his usual hilarity and DeVito seems to telegraph his role in while cashing his paycheck at the bank. And everybody else, well, they all just came across as obvious “filler” with little more to do than to stand around and play along with the goofiness happening around them. Granted, Larry Miller is always funny and he’s probably the only person who comes off “okay” from this movie, but how’s about getting more than three lines in your next film, Larry…you’ve got talent, dammit! And William Fichtner, a man who completely stole the show in 1999’s GO, sort of works as an obviously gay detective here, but despite his character being fun to look at, not much laughs came from him either. Yeah, sure I smirked every now and then, but put me in any movie and I’m bound to do that anyway. Sorry fellas, this whole movie just felt like it was written over a weekend and shot over a week. A dud across the board.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian