"Out of Bounds"
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What You Need To Know:
Matthew Perry plays the beleaguered Oz in a way that recalls the best comedic performances in screwball comedies from Hollywood’s Golden Age. He has several scenes of harried slapstick work that are very funny, and even somewhat clean. Regrettably, though, THE WHOLE NINE YARDS veers too far into pagan realms of immorality and criminality. It has plenty of strong foul language, some sexual content and a long sequence where Oz’s dental assistant wears no clothes. Also, people get away with murder, with covering up crimes and, of course, with the $10 million. MOVIEGUIDE®, therefore, can only say to any moviegoer who might want to see these attractive stars in this comedy: Forget about it!
Content:
(PaPa, B, Ab, LLL, VV, SS, NN, AA, D, MM) Pagan worldview of unhappily married, mildly ethical dentist who gets involved with mobster hitmen, plus a satirical view of marriage; 26 obscenities & 8 profanities; moderate action violence consisting mostly of gangsters shooting other gangsters to death plus some slapstick violence by protagonist; implied adulterous sex, briefly depicted adulterous sex, implied oral sex, & reference to dead pedophile; upper male & female nudity plus full female nudity hidden in shadows & woman in underwear; alcohol use & drunkenness; smoking & beleaguered dentist considers suicide by gassing himself in his office; and, morally ambiguous view of gangsterism, laundered money, covering up several crimes, & murder.
More Detail:
The comedic skills of one of the male stars on TV’s infamous FRIENDS sitcom finally get a chance to shine this winter. Matthew Perry of FRIENDS displays a fine talent for screwball comedy in THE WHOLE NINE YARDS, where he plays an unhappily married dentist who comes between two murderous gangsters seeking $10 million. Regrettably, however, the movie contains plenty of R-rated material and a morally ambiguous worldview.
In the movie, which also stars Bruce Willis, Perry plays Nicholas Oseransky, called Oz for short. Oz is unhappily married to a woman named Sophie, played by Rosanna Arquette. Oz and Sophie, along with Sophie’s mother, have moved to Montreal, Canada, Sophie’s hometown, because Sophie’s late father, who owned a dental practice with Oz in Chicago, got caught molesting a boy in the dentist’s chair and embezzling money from the practice to pay off gambling debts. Oz is now slowly paying back the embezzled money with income from his new practice, but Sophie and her greedy mother are clearly disgruntled that there’s nothing left over for them.
Early in the story, Oz discovers that his new neighbor, Jimmy Jones, played by Bruce Willis, is really Jimmy the Tulip, a hitman who betrayed his boss, a Hungarian gangster, so that Jimmy would only serve five years in prison. Sophie forces Oz to fly to Chicago to try getting a “finder’s fee” from the gangster’s son, Yanni, for locating Jimmy. Oz goes to placate his mean wife and confides to a friend there that he has no intention of going to Yanni. Unhappily for Oz, another hitman named Frank, played by Michael Clarke Duncan of THE GREEN MILE, already knows Oz is in Chicago.
Frank takes Oz to Yanni’s well-guarded home, where Oz learns that Jimmy has a beautiful wife named Cynthia, played by Natasha Henstridge. Oz and Cynthia are mutually attracted to one another. In a sequence that includes an implied adulterous sexual encounter at Oz’s hotel, Cynthia informs Oz that she, Jimmy and Yanni have stashed away $10 million. They can only get the money if all three of them sign for it. Unless, of course, the other two people are dead. Cynthia tells Oz that she expects both Yanni and Jimmy will try to kill her.
Back in Montreal, Oz discovers, in a very funny scene, that Frank and Jimmy are in cahoots together. They plan to lure both Yanni and Cynthia to Montreal to kill both of them and take the money. They tell Oz that, conversely, Yanni plans to kill to Jimmy and Cynthia. Jimmy also tells Oz that his wife Sophie offered Jimmy $10,000 to kill Oz so that she could inherit his life insurance money. Jimmy says he refused, but points out to Oz that Sophie is probably searching for another killer to take his place. Despite the three murder plots, Oz is determined to save Cynthia’s life, and his own, and live happily ever after, if Cynthia will have him.
Matthew Perry plays the beleaguered Oz in a classic way that recalls the best comedic performances in past screwball comedies from Hollywood’s Golden Age. He has several scenes of harried slapstick work that are very funny, and even somewhat clean. Perry just may be the most talented comedic star of the TV series FRIENDS. He works well with the other actors, who are also good, and gets lots of good lines from the well-written but sometimes predictable script.
Regrettably, though, this is still Hollywood Y2K and not Hollywood Circa 1940. There is plenty of strong foul language, some sexual content and a long sequence where Oz’s dental assistant wears no clothes (Amanda Peet plays the dental assistant who becomes the love interest for Bruce Willis’s gangster character). Matching the immorality of this R-rated content is a plot resolution where people get away not only with murder, but also with covering up several crimes and, of course, the $10 million. Perry’s character Oz is implicated in all of this. Although it is true that Oz has no choice but to play along with some of it, or else be killed, it taints both the ethical qualities of his character and the moral philosophy taught by the filmmakers in THE WHOLE NINE YARDS. The only things that mitigate this immorality is Oz’s noble efforts to save Cynthia’s life.
Ultimately, THE WHOLE NINE YARDS veers too far into pagan realms of immorality and criminality. MOVIEGUIDE®, therefore, can only say to any moviegoer who might want to see these attractive stars in this comedy: Forget about it!
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