Jimmy “The Tulip” Tudeski (Willis) and Nicholas “Oz” Osersanski (Perry) are back in the sequel to the 2000 film The Whole Nine Yards. The film opens to find the Tulip retired to Mexico, living the simple homemaker life, cooking, cleaning, and teaching the ways of a hired gun to his new wife played by Amanda Peet. Things soon change as the Hungarian Mafia kidnaps Oz’s wife (Henstridge) forcing Perry to enlist Willis to help, and the chase is on as Willis and Perry yuck it up on their way to saving the day.
First off, to like this movie you must enjoy Matthew Perry’s style of comedy, of which I am not a huge fan of. This made reviewing the movie difficult because, as “Friends” success proves, people love Matthew Perry. I don’t understand, he can say something that I cannot see the humor in, and people laugh like crazy. Proof positive is this movie, I would tell you that it is not funny because of Matthew Perry, however people who saw the movie with me were laughing at his every tired joke. The movie struggles because of his trying so hard to be funny, and even his biggest fans weren’t laughing by the end of the film.
Willis is actually much better, his character is a tough guy that has turned into a house-wife. You might think that his character would struggle with this dichotomy, but instead it is something he seems to enjoy and even obsesses about. There is something inherently funny about seeing Willis dressed up in an apron channeling his inner Martha Stewart.
Another funny part of the movie is the character Lazlo Gogolak (Kevin Pollack). Lazlo is the godfather of Hungarian mobsters. Pollack’s accent and make-up are good, and he and his mafia sidekicks are fun in a way that is only insulting if you are offended by tired stereotypes. This is not the most original comedy in the world, but this movie never pretends to be breaking any barriers on that front.
Amanda Peet and Natasha Henstridge do their part in bringing a little sexual tension to this film, but in the end their performances are as average as is the majority of the film.
The Whole Ten Yards is really just a re-hashing of an original movie that I did not know was a “hit comedy”. A couple of questions to ask yourself before seeing this movie are, Do you like Matthew Perry? Did you like the first one? If so, you will probably like this movie, go see it. If not, save your cash.
