The Whole Nine Yards

(Jonathan Lynn, USA, 2000)

The British background of director Jonathan Lynn (television's Yes, Minister, Nuns on the Run [1990]) is all too evident in the opening stages of The Whole Nine Yards.

For a while, it seems that this gangster comedy is going to rely solely on dull jokes about Canadian and Eastern European accents, names and manners.

Oz (Matthew Perry) is a dentist with a charming assistant, Jill (Amanda Peet), a monstrous wife, Sophie (Rosanna Arquette), and a new neighbour, Jimmy (Bruce Willis), who happens to be a renowned hit man laying low. Oz's miserable, dead-end existence is mirrored by the Canadian setting.

Writer Mitchell Kapner takes an awfully long time organising these elements into an intriguing plot. Oz is finally bullied by Sophie into travelling to Chicago in order to offer his information about Jimmy's whereabouts to Gogolak (Kevin Pollak), a violent and vengeful gangster.

It is only when the surprise revelations concerning the true identities and plans of each character begin to tumble forth that The Whole Nine Yards becomes an enjoyable, if rather old-fashioned comedy.

Lynn compares it to Borsalino (1970) and Shoot the Piano Player (1960) – pre-Tarantino references that indicate the essentially bloodless, whimsical nature of proceedings. More significant than the slate of murders and corpses in the plot is its inexorable, half-successful drift towards romantic comedy, as Oz finds himself falling for Jimmy's wife, Cynthia (Natasha Henstridge).

The actors hold this lightweight piece together. Willis, an underrated performer, provides a cool, still centre, while Perry (in his first satisfying big-screen role) jerks, flails, stutters and falls.

The women, unfortunately, are cast merely in order either to look vacantly pretty (Peet, Henstridge) or talk dirty in a thick, foreign accent (Arquette).

MORE Lynn: The Distinguished Gentleman, The Fighting Temptations

© Adrian Martin March 2000