'THE WORST'? WATCH THIS.Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic From the asking-for-it title to the unmotivated and unexplained buddy-triumph wrap-up, ``What's the Worst That Could Happen?'' fails to make the comic most out of its meager mea·ger also mea·gre adj. 1. Deficient in quantity, fullness, or extent; scanty. 2. Deficient in richness, fertility, or vigor; feeble: the meager soil of an eroded plain. 3. potential for amoral a·mor·al adj. 1. Not admitting of moral distinctions or judgments; neither moral nor immoral. 2. Lacking moral sensibility; not caring about right and wrong. humor. It's basically a one-upmanship contest between a relatively small-time small·time or small-time adj. Informal Insignificant or unimportant; minor: a smalltime actor. small thief with good taste (Martin Lawrence) and a much bigger crook with none (Danny DeVito). There's never a satisfactory explanation for why each of these apparently shrewd guys is so bent on self-destructively messing with the other over a comparatively picayune Picayune (pĭkəy  n`), city (1990 pop. 10,633), Pearl River co., S Miss., near the Pearl River and the La. line; inc. 1904. matter. The fact that the film is based on a novel by Donald E.
Westlake, an acquired-taste kind of master of venal VENAL. Something that is bought. The term is generally applied in a bad sense; as, a venal office is an office which has been purchased. crime comedy, will
have to suffice.
How screenwriter Matthew Chapman (``Consenting Adults'') and director Sam Weisman (``George of the Jungle'') failed to sustain anything but erratic comic tension with the film version has no equivalent excuse. Lawrence rather unconvincingly impersonates a suave, expert burglar of fine art called Kevin Caffrey. He falls in love with comely come·ly adj. come·li·er, come·li·est 1. Pleasing and wholesome in appearance; attractive. See Synonyms at beautiful. 2. Suitable; seemly: comely behavior. British lass Amber Belhaven (Carmen Ejogo) at a Boston auction. An educated but unemployed dot-com casualty, she illogically expresses no qualms about her new boyfriend's line of work. Until, that is, he decides to boost the beach house of bankruptcy-scamming media mogul Max Fairbanks (DeVito, playing Louie DePalma with money). With heaven knows how many illegal schemes in the works and congressional investigators breathing down his neck, crude, rude Max catches Kevin and a friend (John Leguizamo, wasted as in ``Moulin moulin (m lăN`): see pothole. Rouge'')
burglarizing his manse while he's dallying in an upstairs bathroom
with a centerfold cen·ter·fold n. 1. A magazine center spread, especially a foldout of an oversize photograph or feature. 2. a. The subject of a photograph used as a centerfold, often a nude model. b. , not his wife. In the ensuing scuffle, Max manages to wrest wrest tr.v. wrest·ed, wrest·ing, wrests 1. To obtain by or as if by pulling with violent twisting movements: wrested the book out of his hands; wrested the islands from the settlers. a ring from Kevin's hand. Since it's a special keepsake his new lady gave him, Kevin vows to get it back. Since its design has some I-Ching significance for the superstitious Max, he insists on keeping the ring. Even though everyone from Max's long-suffering lawyer (a good Richard Schiff) to the unsentimental Amber tell their guys to just let it go, Max and Kevin insist on taking ever more extreme measures to lay permanent claim to the trinket. It's some kind of, um, measurement thing that males plagued with a certain insecurity have been known to compete at under various circumstances. But no one else in the movie can understand why Kevin and Max are bothering to. Neither can we. The funniest escalation of this occurs at a televised Senate hearing, where Kevin's pranks fluster Max into hurling epithets in his interrogators' direction and a dedicated sign-language interpreter (Stephanie Clayman) doesn't miss a one. The most bizarre element is provided by William Fichtner as a foppish fop·pish adj. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a fop; dandified. fop  pish·ly adv. police
detective. The filmmakers evidently couldn't decide if he'd be
more commercially appealing as flamboyantly gay or just a fancy dresser
with an interest in Max's lovelorn assistant (Glenne Headly). So
they made him, contradictory as it plays out, both.
What really would have been commercial would be something funny during the 45 minutes or so after the cop and the congressmen are introduced. Or to have given audiences some good reason to care about the fate of two selfish criminals, other than the fact the movie's about them and the box office has already taken your money. ``WHAT'S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN?'' (Rated PG-13: language, mild violence) The stars: Martin Lawrence, Danny DeVito, John Leguizamo, Carmen Ejogo, Glenne Headly, Nora Dunn, William Fichtner. Behind the scenes: Directed by Sam Weisman. Written by Matthew Chapman, based on Donald E. Westlake's novel. Produced by Lawrence Turman, David Hoberman, Ashok Amritraj and Wendy Dytman. Released by MGM MGM in full Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. U.S. corporation and film studio. It was formed when the film distributor Marcus Loew, who bought Metro Pictures in 1920, merged it with the Goldwyn production company in 1924 and with Louis B. Mayer Pictures in 1925. . Running time: One hour, 35 minutes. Playing: Citywide. Our rating: Two stars CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Danny DeVito, left, and Martin Lawrence play a game of one-upmanship in ``What's the Worst That Could Happen?'' |
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