GIVE SOME CREDIT TO 'THE MAN' - THEN MOVE ALONG.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

SAMUEL L. JACKSON is the hard-core Detroit ATF agent Derrick Vann. Eugene Levy is the meek and mild, visiting dental-supplies salesman Andy Fidler, who gets mistakenly caught up in Vann's investigation of a stolen weapons cache. The movie is called ``The Man.'' It is as generic as its title.

I suppose Jackson and Levy work up a good comic rapport. Vann's a bully who swears a lot, which Jackson has been known to be kind of good at in the past. Fidler is a clueless shlemiel whose salesman's chirpiness not only wins Vann over, but also helps him get by with the bad guys who mistake Andy for an internationally wanted arms buyer.

He teaches Vann how to cuss less and be a better dad to his adorable ballerina daughter. The situation forces Fidler to act courageously, and he gets shot in the butt for his troubles.

Just so you won't confuse it with ``Midnight Run'' and ``The In-Laws'' or any other action comedies just like it, ``The Man'' has distinctive flatulence jokes.

Otherwise, it's all marginally funny, exciting and suspenseful, emphasis on the marginally. The director, Les Mayfield, was responsible for the similar, and similarly forgettable, ``Blue Streak,'' as well as the completely different (but equally pointless) ``Flubber'' and ``Miracle on 34th Street'' remakes. If you stay until the very end, you'll enjoy some full-body-cavity search jokes.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

THE MAN - Two and one half stars

(PG-13: violence, language)

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Eugene Levy, Luke Goss, Miguel Ferrer.

Director: Les Mayfield.

Running time: 1 hr. 23 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: Mismatched buddy cop comedy. Adequate, unnecessary.

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Eugene Levy, left, plays a meek salesman who finds himself in a case of mistaken identity and must team up with a cop, played by Samuel L. Jackson, in ``The Man.''