Review of The Whole Nine Yards (2000) by Jesse O — 15 Jan 2015

This is a lot less funny than I remembered it being. Of course, not that I ever thought this was one of the funniest films ever made, but then again, when I first watched this movie I was either 12 or 13, so you understand how I might've thought this was funnier back in the day.

I was a kid, therefore young and stupid. Is it just me or is Bruce Willis not particularly good at comedies? He can play a straight man role well, but it's not like Jason Bateman in Arrested Development, where his timing and delivery are so perfect that he's just as funny as any of the crazy members of the Bluth family.

Bruce Willis, of course, is no Jason Bateman I hate to say, as if that would surprise anybody. I don't know why this film made me realize just how unfunny Bruce Willis is...and I even watched Cop Out.

I'm not saying he can't do comedy, cause the Die Hard series has always had some comedic touches with his one-liners. But as a strictly comedy actor, Bruce is no good. It just seems like he has a stick up his ass all the time.

And I mean the real-life guy, not the characters he plays, and that renders him unable to do comedy well. So, when all your comedy rests on the shoulders of MATTHEW PERRY, then you know you have problems.

To be fair though, while Matthew is certainly really fucking goofy, he did get a few chuckles out of me. The film's script, however, does nobody any favors. Let's divide the film in three parts.

The first part would be Oz meeting Jimmy and everything leading to him going to Chicago to rat Jimmy out to his former boss' son, The second part would be Jimmy finding about Oz's plan and trying to find a way to kill the Gogolak gang before they kill him.

The third part would be after everything's done, and the Gogolak gang is eliminated, Jimmy and Oz not trusting each other before Jimmy is preparing to collect the $10 million dollars. The first part is the exposition, it's setting everything that's gonna transpire, but to be honest, it's not really that funny, outside of one or two mild chuckles.

The second part of the film, somehow, is actually not that bad. This is where most of the comedic highlights take place. I don't wanna say it's like a switch went off, because it wasn't great anyway, but it was infinitely funnier than what I had just seen.

The third part, however, goes right back to unfunny, as it was during its exposition. Like they were exhausted and they just couldn't come up with anything else. That's the problem with the film, it's structured much like a sitcom and written like one too.

A decent cast, even with unfunny Bruce Willis, and some chuckles certainly don't make up for the film's flaws. Can you believe they actually made a sequel for this film? A sequel that I actually WATCHED?!? I get the fact that the film was financially successful, but it's not like the world was clamoring to spend more time with these characters.

You have to take things into consideration, just because people liked it once doesn't mean that they'll like it again. And this is the case with this "series", once was good enough for people.

No need to repeat the same formula, you know. It just ends up feeling like a waste of money more than anything else. But I digress, this really wasn't a horrific film by any means, it's unspectacular and forgettable.

If you've run out of things to watch then I guess you could give this a shot, but I doubt anyone would ever run out of things to watch to the point that this is the only film that's left. Watch at your own risk.