Review of The Whole Nine Yards (2000) by Ryan G — 16 Jan 2014

The Whole Nine Yards has its jokes delivered in a sitcom format which is actually a decent IDE because Matthew Perry is known for his hilarious work on the sitcom Friends so it seems as if it could work.

But The Whole Nine Yards wastes Matthew Perry's on a lacklustre script and a stupid story.

The Whole Nine Yards attempts to humourously commercialise the concept of contract killing, but it actually takes the dumbest approach I've ever seen. And even with Matthew Perry's psychotic personality which ensures a strong performance it is hugely bereft of laughs with what little laughs there are mainly being directed at his strong performance.

The script in The Whole Nine Yards is dumb and supplies no surprises or anything new to the film and has no strong moments of humour, and the characters are mostly cheaply written figures which would more commonly make guest appearances on a sitcom than play a prominent role in a film.

And the story itself actually gets confusing because there are so many characters to keep track of that eventually it becomes too much effort to track unfunny characters in an unfunny comedy.

Essentially, director Jonathan Lynn fails to keeps The Whole Nine Yards structured well or executed any better and so it comes out as just being an largely unfunny and boring sitcom.

Bruce Willis is barely even in it for the first 40 minutes of the film and in the latter 58 minutes he's ok, but he doesn't receive enough screen time for a film where he is credited as the lead and he doesn't have much to work with during his little time on screen so the humour he produces is sporadical.

And whatever accent Rosanna Arqutte does isn't beneficial to the film in any way. It's loud and repetitive and annoying, and it doesn't give her any credibility as an actress. Her sex appeal does, but her character simply does not, and she is the only cast member who is not deserving of any praise for acting, even though she tries to work with the poor quality script and unintelligent direction.

But luckily the rest of the cast does a decent job.

Natasha Henstridge gives a very confident and surprisingly convincing performance. And unlike in Species and Maximum Risk she doesn't have to remove her clothing to make herself a good presence. In The Whole Nine Yards her skill at line delivery and articulation is working at its full strength, and even though she isn't particularly funny she still proves herself by giving a strong performance, and she does still have sex appeal.

Michael Clarke Duncan had a lot of comedic energy and combined it with his intimidating physicality to form a strong figure which made him a powerful presence. And it's just great to see him working in comedy.

Amanda Peet manages to give it her all and has a lot of comedic energy and sexual appeal in her which makes her a good presence in The Whole Nine Yards.

So The Whole Nine Yards is funnier for the less intelligent crowds, but while the more intelligent may appreciate the cast it is unlikely they will laugh at a poorly directed and cheaply written sitcom.