The Whole Ten Yards

Jimmy “The Tulip” has given up on his life as a hitman and is now living with his neurotic, murdering-obsessed wife in Mexico, away from all the hustle and bustle of mob life. That’s until his old friend, the supposed “dentist”, shows up at his doorstep, asking for his aid to get his kidnapped wife back from the aforementioned mobsters. Idiocies ensue as Matthew Perry and Bruce Willis make complete asses out of themselves. A perfect example of everything that is wrong with Hollywood today…ensues.

Sometimes there are no better ways to describe a film than to just, straight-out, tell it like it is: this is a shit movie, folks! It’s shit because it doesn’t need to “be”…it’s merely there because Hollywood has turned into a boring, ol’ risk-averse, churn-’em-out machine that’d rather bang out recycled garbage than take a chance on anything original or involving actual creative thought. Bruce Willis should be ashamed of himself for starring and promoting this chunk of excrement, even moreso because of his seemingly, more artful path over the past few years with films like THE SIXTH SENSE and UNBREAKABLE (psssst, give Shyamalan a call, dude…don’t go out like this). I don’t mind sitting through a handful of bad sequels to great films, if only because it re-affirms how much more powerful some films can be, but if bad sequels to medium-sized “so-so” movies are the next trend in Lala-land, I’m likely to review less and less of them over the next few years and concentrate more on indies, foreign flicks, classics and maybe even porn! (the ejaculation scenes in those films alone have more humor than this hunk o’ poop). THE WHOLE TEN YARDS sucks primarily because it’s not funny. I understand that humor is subjective, so maybe some of you will consider the sight of a “nutty” hitman dressed up like a housewife in bunny slippers, hilarity at its peak, an old woman serving appetizers while unknowingly farting at the same time, a powerful statement in American humor, or the ongoing slapstick of watching the now extremely unfunny actor Matthew Perry bouncing into walls, hitting his head against doors and falling all over himself, a paramount of humorous cinematic conventions, but for me, I need a little more than bumbling mobsters slapping each other for 90 minutes and chickens…to make me go “ha-ha”.

As for originality, here are a few of my “faves” from this film: Perry asks for a “Check!” in a restaurant after something bad happens (never heard that one before…brilliant!) and “accidentally” leaves his dentist’s “laughing gas” on too long with a patient in another scene. Wow. In yet another attempt at the obvious, the two lead men wake up in the same bed the morning after some heavy drinking and one of them kisses the other one on the head-thinking it to be his girlfriend, of course. Wow-wee. And throughout the entire film, we get the mind-bogglingly unfunny Kevin Pollak over-acting his phony plastic chin off as an indecipherable mob boss who mispronounces Jimmy’s name as “Yimmy” because it’s apparently one of the funnier bits ever put to film (and oh, I get it…a mob boss who’s difficult to understand…kinda like Brando in GODFATHER, right…yeah, wow…original) Bugh. I can go on for days about how little I found to be humorous in this film, or how some scenes felt oddly serious and out of place (chicken gets crushed by car, woman gets brutal slap in the face…real sensitive, fellas), but there are plenty of other problems to go around including the lack of an engaging storyline (felt like it was written as they went along), excruciatingly unlikable characters (everyone in the film seems to hate each other and as an audience member…you can see why!), editing problems, moronic bad guys, an unbelievable and half-assed conclusion and a whole bunch of Willis’ in the end credits? (es tu, Bruno?)

As for Matthew Perry…coke, no coke…I don’t care what you do in your personal life, dude, but ever since you’ve gotten that weird-ass tan, lost your chin and cut your hair, you’re no longer funny. The relaxed, cool, sarcastic cat that made us all laugh during the first two seasons of “Friends” is gone and replaced by an android who seems to think that suntan lotion and bouncing into pots and pans is the basis of all things humorous. In this film, Matthew Perry sucks, Bruce Willis sucks, Kevin Pollack sucks, the director Howard Deutch sucks and yeah, even Natasha Henstridge, looking great, sucks…while sitting around doing nothing. The only somewhat unscathed party is the lovely Amanda Peet, who despite playing the same person she does in every film, looks hot as shit and even prances around in her bra and panties at some point (although unlike her appearance in the original flick, does not grace us with her dashing Peets). I spit on Hollywood for making this bogus, useless, unfunny, uncharming, unnecessary piece of shit and ask anyone who’s reading this to avoid this movie at all costs in a very genuine attempt to send a small message back to the clowns in expensive suits who apparently believe that this is the sort of “entertainment” that we would ever want or appreciate. I’m proud to say that, to this day, I have not seen BATMAN & ROBIN because I didn’t want to back that sort of garbage anymore, and here’s yet another great movie to skip in order to deliver those all-powerful words to the industry: We’re mad as hell and we’re not gonna take it anymore! This film deserves a “G” for “Go Fuck Yourself! And oh yeah…move over GIGLI…there’s a new Sheriff in town…

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian