Ten yards short of being decent

PEGGY J. ROGERS

“The Whole Nine Yards” owes its success to the unlikely pairing of a

wimpy dentist and a ruthless hit man, played by Matthew Perry and

Bruce Willis respectively. Their different lifestyles and

personalities serve as the driving force behind all the laughs.

Matthew Perry’s Chicken Little approach to life mixed with Bruce

Willis’ hip and laid back attitude could have been the beginning of a

Hollywood coupling like Laurel and Hardy, Dean and Jerry, Walter

Matthau and Jack Lemmon. In “The Whole Nine Yards,” they spend more

time fighting and getting in each other’s way than they ever do

fighting their enemies. In the sequel, “The Whole Ten Yards,” Perry

and Willis are still fighting each other, but it’s not as funny.

Contrasting characters involved in unavoidable situations make

comedy work. You get two extreme perspectives and reactions for the

price of one. Whenever a gun went off in “The Whole Nine Yards,” for

example, Perry would inevitably fall quivering to the floor while

Willis’ reaction was a laid-back, cool smirk. In the sequel, they’re

like two peas in a pod, nearly identical. This time, they are both

neurotic. This time, Willis is more domesticated and henpecked than

Matthew Perry. This time, it just isn’t funny seeing Bruce wield a

weapon while dressed like Alice from “The Honeymooners” and stressing

out about his pot roast. The cool smirks have been replaced with

tantrums about housework.

Now they fret, worry and wring their hands together over their

respective marriage problems. They are regular folks now, with

regular problems. They need to experience the excitement of being

chased and shot at by ruthless killers like before in “Nine Yards.”

This time, however, the chase isn’t real and the crooks are a wee bit

wimpy, too. They are lazy, stupid killers. Watching Perry and Willis

running from the ruthless crooks in the original was exciting because

their chances of escaping were low. Watching them outrunning the

crooks in the sequel, however, is almost guaranteed doable. A movie

that has viewers guessing correctly how the movie will end before the

middle of the second act sucks the fun and laughs out of the theater.

Sequels have a running start ahead of first-run films because they

come with a sizable audience eager to pay good money again to see

familiar characters in new situations. If “The Whole Ten Yards” had

been made before “Nine Yards,” however, the opportunity of making a

sequel would have drawn the biggest laugh yet.

One saving grace of the sequel is Amanda Peet. The wannabe hit

woman returns as the only original character left intact from “Nine

Yards” and the only character who still sharply contrasts with

everyone else in the room. She’s mortified and frustrated about the

progress she’s making as a contract killer. Peet’s story line is the

only one in the film whose outcome the audience can’t quite

second-guess.

“The Whole Ten Yards” relies on sight gags and jokes that need to

be updated because they have been seen and heard before, the

characters are too alike to tell apart or care about, and it lacks

the juice and excitement of the original. Watching “The Whole Nine

Yards” again, even five more times, is going to be funnier than just

one viewing of “The Whole Ten Yards.” Wait for the DVD, it should be

arriving in stores soon.

* PEGGY J. ROGERS, 40, produces commercial videos and

documentaries.

Punishing viewers with predictability

As I entered the theater to see “The Punisher,” I was handed a

reprint of the Marvel comic book in which the character was

introduced. This should have been the first indication I was not

going to be viewing a serious drama.

A sense of deja vu permeates the proceedings here. Even the

trailers for this film give away the entire setup. Undercover FBI

agent Frank Castle (Tom Jane), on his final assignment before

retirement no less, sees an illegal firearms sting go bad, which

results in the death of a mobster’s son. Of course the mobster,

Howard Saint (John Travolta), seeks revenge and is spurred on to wipe

out Castle’s entire family by his equally evil wife.

An army of hired assassins is dispatched to an idyllic family

reunion on a remote beach in the Caribbean. Castle’s wife, son,

father, mother and seemingly every other relative (even his in-laws)

are wiped out. Castle himself is shot, beaten, doused with gasoline

and blown up. Needless to say, he somehow survives and sets out to

avenge his loss.

Checking into the seediest of tenements, Castle spends his days

drinking Wild Turkey, loading guns and plotting his revenge. He is

somewhat befriended by the three misfits in the adjoining apartments.

These include a beautiful waitress (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) stalked by

her psychotic ex-boyfriend, a greasy shut-in with numerous facial

piercings (Ben Foster) and a cowardly fat man named Mr. Bumpo (John

Pinette). They soon find out Castle is such damaged goods that he’s

beyond socializing.

Of course, everything that transpires early in the film is a

prelude to the orgy of violence that ensues once Castle exacts his

vengeance. Admittedly, there are some fairly imaginative scenarios in

this key portion of the film, but there are no surprises. Between the

disturbing vignettes of Castle’s family being killed and the

protracted mayhem of the numerous revenge killings, numbness

eventually sets in. I found myself not really caring anymore by the

time the especially grisly penultimate showdown with Saint occurs.

Competent performances are sprinkled throughout this ultimately

unsatisfying film. Tom Jane is certainly “buff” enough for the part

and spends most of the picture shirtless or nearly so. Jane plays

Castle as an understandably disturbed outcast with no purpose left in

life but to kill Saint and his minions. The usually overlooked Will

Patton turns in a chilling performance as Saint’s main henchman,

Quentin Glass. Frankly, I’m growing bored with Travolta’s repetitious

“bad guy” portrayals. In “The Punisher” Travolta plays basically the

same character he did in “Broken Arrow” and “Swordfish.”

I’ve read “The Punisher” cost a relatively paltry $35 million to

make. The comic book following alone will probably generate enough

box office proceeds for the picture to make money. This type of “hit

and run” mentality results in a lot of forgettable films being made,

a category in which “The Punisher” unfortunately falls.

* VAN NOVACK, 50, is the director of institutional research at Cal

State Long Beach and lives in Huntington Beach with his wife

Elizabeth.