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The Whole Nine Yards was a really good movie. It had a smart plot,
funny lines, and a good-looking cast—and it wasn’t burdened by great expectations.
Moviegoers loved it. Too bad the same thing can’t be said for its sequel, The Whole
Ten Yards.
In the first movie, Jimmy “The Tulip” Tudeski (Bruce
Willis) was a hardened killer who had just been admitted to the witness protection
program. Nicholas “Oz” Oseransky (Matthew Perry) was the dentist next-door neighbor
whose wife just happened to be trying to kill him. By the end of that movie, the two
formed a friendship, and Oseransky helped Tudeski fake his own death.
The follow-up movie takes place three years later, with Tudeski living in
Mexico (married to the hit-woman—played by Amanda Peet—who had been hired by Oseransky’s
ex-wife) and Oseransky with a thriving new practice (and married to Tudeski’s ex-wife,
played by Natasha Henstridge). An old rival of Tudeski’s—a member of the Hungarian
mob—is released from prison and decides to take revenge by kidnapping Tudeski’s
(ex-)wife. The Tulip and his wife agree to help Oz. The plot gets more confusing from
there—with the obligatory plot twist at the end that you knew was coming from the
start.
The cast is back intact, but they don’t have the same chemistry
this time around. In the first movie, there was a clear emotional connection between the
couples, but none of them even pretend to have it this time. They simply deliver the
lines, punch the clock, and go home at the end of the day. There are no funny lines for
them to deliver, either. Willis has gone from playing a tough mob killer to an
obsessive-compulsive house-cleaning husband. Peet, who was devastatingly sexy and
dangerous in the first movie, comes off as incompetent and frumpish this time. Likewise,
Henstridge was the perfect ‘girl-in-peril’ in the last movie and was barely noticeable
this time around.
Be sure to leave this movie on the shelf at the rental
store this weekend. No need for both of us to suffer over the same movie.
